Jack of Tales's page

Any chance you'd allow the Samsaran race from ARG?
Reading through the intro gave me the idea to play a Samsaran who has a past life as a companion of both Bofred and Zelkor.
Edit: Also, can no summon spells be used/cast or simply just no feats/archetypes/classes oriented around summoning?

Maxximilius wrote:

Level 20 game is NOT balanced, nor intended and designed to be.

Uhhhhh wut??!! Not supposed to be balanced at level 20? Where are you coming up with this stuff, seriously?

I think you're confused. Pathfinder and 3.5 are not balanced nor even really intended to be all that balanced. They never have been. There are thousands of rules that result in incredibly overpowered combinations.

3.5 was even -more- broken than Pathfinder. Do you know why? Many of the spells were much more powerful (polymorph is the first to always come to mind) and all of the extra crunch rules combined into a monstrous (and fun) creation of overpowered hell. It was possible to create a character that was mostly martial and could leap hundreds of feat in the air to land on an enemy for hundreds of points of damage and easily survive.

There were builds that had unlimited stats. I'm sure it was possible to get unlimited experience.

IN fact, by RAW, your wizard can sit around casting fireballs at swarms of dire rats all day long, all level long and get enough experience to create whatever the hell he wants. Where's the rule limiting that?

On a final note, you repeatedly note that it is easy/possible to get unlimited gold. There are very few ways of doing this in pure pathfinder RAW, and none in the core alone. Wealth-by-level RAW limits how much gold you should have per level. This is just as meta-gamey as knowing how much of a non-in game currency (XP) you have to spend.

P.S. Congratulations on being a super-troll. I think this thread should be closed/removed.

Thanks for the clarification! That's what I figured, but wasn't sure.

If you dip into cleric, druid or inquisitor and pick up a domain, does that domain increase in power with character level?

Most if not all of the abilities state that you get the ability a number of rounds/minutes/etc at X + cleric level per day.

However, each domain has another granted power that comes into play at level 4 (usually). If you dip into cleric, would you gain this granted power when you reach 4 character levels? I don't see anywhere specifying that you would need 4 levels in the class you obtained the domain from.

magic jar?

I hadn't thought about magic jar, its actually a summoner spell so it could actually have a decent DC. It'd only last for 9 hours, but that should be enough time to sow enough chaos in the enemy ranks.

I don't think charm person would work. While the character has a high diplomacy skill, a charmed person would still only treat you as a friend. It might help make diplomacy easier for a short period of time, but I'm not sure it would cause much harm to the enemy without providing numerous saves.

Suggestion might work, but again the problem arises as with dominate: low save DCs.

I'm trying to come up with the best way to somewhat take control of an enemy force by taking control of their leader. At the moment, the character trying to do this is a mid-level summoner with a decent UMD and an eidolon with an even higher UMD.

I currently have 2 thoughts on this, but there are some rules questions I'm unsure of.

1) The simple way: Dominate person. However, what would the DC be on a dominate person scroll? I suspect it would only be 10+ spell level and not add any ability score bonus? that's pretty easy for a level 7-8 enemy to ignore. What other spells/items can a level 7-10 summoner use to lower saves to make this viable? Would several low level witch followers (leadership) work too?

2) the complex way:
Get the leader and kill them.
Cast gentle repose on the corpse. Can permanency be used with gentle repose?
Cast create undead from a scroll (UMD 31 twice for ability score and scroll). Turn the enemy leader into a zombie lord. This only works if there is a way to use gentle repose permanently. Would it be possible to create a wondrous item (cohort is a crafter) to create a gentle repose effect permanently? How much would this cost?
Also in that vein, if the enemy leader has a charisma of 18, Create undead can turn it into a ghoul with the Civilized undead feat.

Any other methods using a combination of items and spells as opposed to story mechanisms (blackmail, diplomacy, etc)?

I've been looking for an updated .pdf list for awhile now. Anyone care to help a future summoner/conjurer out with any links or info?

Also, I love summoning, but not sure if the recent books have changed the summoner to something utilitarian and versatile enough to warrant picking it over a conjurer wizard. Anyone with experience in that regard?

I'm playing a master summoner in a current game and the best part about them is the ability to pretty much spam summon monsters from level 1. A wizard is stuck with 1 round summons that take a full round action to summon each time. I feel that the extra utility a wizard has from other spells is far outweighed by the sheer quantity/length of summons a summoner gets. You might get a different perspective from someone in a party with a wizard, however.

As the main support caster (there is a cleric but they focus on heals/melee/blasting) all of those summons are ridiculously useful. Giving every party member Aid right before each fight with a lantern archon is nice. As is the ability to have spells "ready" that you usually wouldn't prepare. For example, one of the mephits can use Gust of Wind 1/day. That spell usually isn't very useful unless you're facing many small/tiny creatures or a swarm.

The length of the summons also lets you reliably summon them prior to running into a fight. And with an eidolon that you can make into a stealth monkey (Ranks+dex+8 evolution+small size+ skill focus since there's nothing better to spend feats on for a 1/2 level eidolon) you almost always have time to prepare before a fight.

Crafting takes 8 hours per 1,000 GP the item takes to make. So it is faster to upgrade a weapon from +1 to +2 than it is to build a +2 weapon from scratch.

Of course, I don't think that really helps your situation.

If you had a crafter in the party then the time would improve exponentially. You could assuredly get things done 75% faster. A good crafter (high spellcraft) could rush all orders increasing the DC by 5 in exchange for crafting 2,000 GP per 8 hour period (1,000 per 4 hour period) and then on top of that get Arcane Builder (wizard alternative to bonus feat) to get another 25% time reduction for items of a specific type. The crafter in our games makes Wondrous items at an incredibly fast rate.

I really don't think he's looking to actually change the class at all. Simple re-flavor it, no actual mechanical changes.

Ideas:
Non-religion related monster hunter. Somewhat like a ranger, but more urban. They hunt down the monsters among humanity - vampires, werewolves, shapechangers, undead that can pretend to be living, etc. Magic stems from symbology. Prayers/litanies are muttered oaths/rites.

A Judge: Someone who doesn't necessarily worship any god, but simply devotes their life to the ideals of Law. They seek out chaos in hopes to crush it. Magic stems from inner devotion rather than an external god/source.

Really, you can fit it to match whatever concept you want. That's how everything in D&D has always been.

Inquisitor could be a warlock who made a pact with some unknown creature in the abyss of space. Who cares if the bonus is "sacred?" It doesn't stack with other holy/religion sacred effects due to complications in how you summon forth the power. Just explain or handwave away things like that.

After our first session in Part 2:
Spent 1 year, built 2 cities, have a booming economy and 18 hexes.
Rescued Tigg from the Lizardfolk. We uh..recruited the lizardfolk, the shambling mound, and sent Nettles on his way to the afterlife. We also came across Bokken's brother and took him out/stabilized him after. Yay for 67 dmg crits on that poor puma.

Hahaha, wow, I thought my group was the recruitingest in town, but yours puts us to shame! Arturo has developed a real hatred of enemies that talk smack or try to mess with one's head (worgs, will-o-wisps, Dovan...) and Saachi freaks out around the numerous giant bugs, so that has removed a number of potential "allies" from the list.

What are your bandit mooks like? What do all these NPCs do? Do they just hang out, or do they have special jobs in the barony? I love to hear about other people's games...

Leadership role intents: Obtain cooperation from all groups in territory.

Garuum will be first mayor of a budding, civilized boggard town.

Miscellaneous kobolds/mites/guards have been dispatched as diplomatic liaisons and to spread the word of Abadar to nearby nations (of course without "official" consent).

The tatzlworms are being raised by Nugreh/Kressle and will be loyal guards of whoever holds the Baron's crown (due to their level, more likely to be highly intelligent guards of the group's main castle when it is built).

Future Recruiting Prospects:
We get a full year to build among other things. On our (re: my) list is to attempt the following "recruitments."
1) Trolls are suspected to be wandering around the territory. Exploration and discovery of their lair will be a priority--recruit and make soldiers.

2) Davik Nettles awaits the Stag Lord's corpse..he won't get it. However, maybe he can be convinced to watch over the Stag Lord and to make sure he doesn't step out of line. An undead watchdog.

3) A random shambling mound was discovered in the woods and avoided at a lower level. Sebastian (alchemist) rolled high enough to know it is an intelligent creature. Roland, stacked with some Speak with Plants potions, will return there to hire the creature as a midden-heap guard.

Is there any chance of getting a copy of the cc3 (or better yet a layered psd/layered tiff) file of the map?

Thanks!

Many times this. Also, I have CC3 but haven't cracked it open in a long time, I know nothing about 'styles." How would I go about getting/acquiring/buying the proper style for this map?

Courtney! wrote:

Dungeon Maestro wrote:

They've been Kingdom Building for an in-game year now, and Happs Bydon has become their Spymaster.

snip...

I'll admit, many of my decisions regarding how to portray the NPCs are based as much on what I think the group (and I!) will enjoy, as they are on the brief write-up or lack thereof. Love me some banter...

I have tried to do the same as a GM in this adventure path. I'll try to include NPCs that will engage all of the PCs. As a note I'm the GM in Jack of Tales game.

Oh dude, Hey!

Update on our game: We just finished book 1.
In the process, we explored several areas of book 2 prior to recruiting the Stag Lord (oh yes). This involved us murdering the Tendriculo--whatever plant thing of death. We annhilated it quickly after tossing handfuls of skeletal frogs, wolves and Tatzlworms at it.

We made an attempt to get to the tower in the middle of the Candlemere lake..that place is terrifying. We ran once the Will saves started up.

Our final recruitment list looks as follows:
4 bandits from Kressle's camp
All bandits from the Stag Lord's camp including all named, even Sneeg.
Random encounter Worg
2 baby Tatzlworms (we found some eggs because our GM rocks)
Chief Sootscale's tribe
Tyg & the faerie dragon
Graggle's Mite tribe
Garuum the Boggart
and then all of the people you're expected to have: Jahd, Keston, etc.

Wow there are some great stories here! We just recently had our second session and I was curious how others had resolved it. I've yet to see anyone that managed what we pulled off, but am unsure.

We have an alchemist and a wizard, both with a wide range of languages. Ironically, they happen to have both Draconic and Undercommon. This allowed us to communicate with the kobolds that we had found at the radish patch and discover the problems the Mites were causing the kobolds.

My cleric was very suspicious of the kobold shaman (Turtuk? or something) which led to plenty of investigation at the kobold village (We managed to get the kobolds from the radish patch to mark it on our maps). We talked to the mite that was caged there and learned the mite side of the problem as well.

We then proceeded to take the mite back to his village and secure a deal from both the kobolds and the mites where we would ambush the shaman who was on his way to kill the mites and deal with him ourselves. The ambush went off perfectly. The wizard dropped two sleep spells on the rest of the kobolds and knocked them out so we didn't have to hurt them/kill them. We then butchered the shaman with several well placed arrows and bullets. (all ranged party is working -crazy- well so far)

My cleric stabilized him in order to figure out why he was doing what he was, and to prove that his god was fake to the rest of the kobolds (or at least the ones we just captured, the chieftain and his tribe already started shouting "Praise Abadar!" before we left that town.) Unfortunately, the shaman could not be saved. He seemed convinced for a crusade against all kobolds and the party was split on what to do. Two characters were insistant on murdering him in cold blood while myself and the wizard wanted to keep him alive, try to reform him and possibly bring him back to Oleg's with us.

However, after realizing that the rest of the party needed to be at least partially sated (bloodthirsty goons wanted to murder all the kobolds, then the mites and ignore any diplomacy or negotiation anyway) we caved in and compromised. The shaman would be returned to his people. Apparently, the sentence of the tribe for treason was to be flayed alive. As an act of mercy on our part we declared that such a death was too cruel for anyone under jurisdiction of our lands. Due to being several days from Oleg's (and planning on spending 6 days to get back to investigate more area), a desire to sate the rest of the party and a desire to sate the whims of Sootscale, we executed the shaman quickly.

So..we managed to fail to recruit the shaman. BUT we have the kobolds and the mites on our side along with a treaty being written up to organize a system of joint mining and using the mites as guards for the kobold's silver mine.

A random encounter also netted our ranger a wolf to train after some fantastic heal and wild empathy checks after combat.

The bandits from the Kressles' group are now engaged in building a shrine to Abadar outside of Oleg's trading post. My cleric hopes to turn them into acolytes of his god.

My group of LNs, some LE. allied with everything and their mighty kingdom is home to the 'many and varied' creatures of this world.

dont worry, its a nice change.

there is load chaos to slaughter later though

I think the entire party is LN. I just proposed to them the challenge of taking as many, if not all, sentient intelligent creatures we come across alive or through negotiation. The challenge, I think, will be the Stag Lord..

Wow seems definitely swayed one extreme or the other.

At the moment, since Oleg & Svetlana aren't too keen on allowing the bandits near the Post we've been having them tag along behind us. Happs ended up going back to Restov as a prisoner while we were ambushing Kressle.

My character has a fairly good diplomacy plus the Silver-tongue ability from the Trade domain and will hopefully sway them over to his god and to the idea that they themselves are stronger when part of a strong social order. It can expand on what the party's figured out so far about the Stag Lord as being a "might is right" kind of guy to being a more "might of the society is right" sort of opinion.

I like the idea of paying them to build a small place of worship for Abadar (especially as I want to make this a theocracy :D). As a LN god, hopefully it'll be easier to change their alignments than to LG.

I'll have to toss that idea by the DM and party members over e-mail before the next session.

My group just started Kingmaker this past weekend. In the first session we managed to capture Happs and two of his bandits and keep all four horses(two died from crits), explore south and negotiate with the kobolds at the moon beets field (avoiding another fight), and then summarily ambush Kressle's group in the night and capture her and three(or two?) of the others. The only enemies to die so far have been the four bandits that were crit (three by one gunslinger and the fourth by an archer ranger).

We're a fully lawful party with myself as de-facto leader. As a cleric of Abadar and fully in the mind that rehabilitation is the best method for being both just, fair and eliminating crime, we've managed to build up a miniature kingdom in just our first session.

..Did any other parties get this lucky? Do you think we can continue this throughout the rest of the adventure? So far we've been lucky to ambush every enemy we've fought (except for some random centipedes) and negotiate successfully with everyone we capture.

Any suggestions on the best way to slowly start to change the bandits' alignments? The day after we captured them my PC prepped and cast detect chaos/detect evil. A strategy that has helped us in identifying who our lawful allies are and who is chaotic or evil. I know that Kressle and her troops are evil and non-chaotic (betting on neutral over lawful..) but am not sure how to go about altering that alignment and am looking for some ideas!

This is a question about Gunslinger archetypes and the Amateur Gunslinger feat.

The feat states that you gain the ability to perform a single 1st-level deed from the gunslinger deed class feature. Would this allow access to the specific 1st-level deeds from the archetypes?

Jack of Tales wrote:

Trophy Hunter Rangers (firearms)

Gunslinger dip needed for Gunsmith and grit.

Quote:

Holy gun seems interesting. Unfortunately, Paladins don't get access to any grit points until 11th level in the archetype, forcing them to have to pick up either a multi-class or the Amateur gunslinger feat. Its unfortunate that the feat uses Wisdom, which makes it pretty useless for the paladin.

Multiclass with (Mysterious Stranger) Gunslinger (uses Cha).

As long as multiclass with Gunslinger the other options aren't traps.
Yes, gunslingers required but it isn't like one level will hurt.

I hadn't realized you'd need gunslinger for the trophy hunter ranger too. The only 'hurt' is that it pushes back when you get spells even further for both classes which isn't too bad.

@submit2me - I agree a little. I love class features which is why things like the Inquisitor, Oracle and Summoner get a ton of little fiddly bits (I love my fiddly bits). But at the same time, a book of prepared spells, to me, has nearly as much flavor/versatility. I -really- wish there were more classes that prepared spells instead of being spontaneous casters. I'd like the summoner that much more if they had a spell book and the versatility of being able to get access to more spells due to it (spells known, not cast or different types of spells, obviously).

I didn't necessarily want someone who would be using ranged combat at higher levels when you have plenty of spells per day plus wands, rods, scrolls, etc. I wanted something that would be fun to tote around low levels until you have the income/gold to buy consumables and not worry about using them every round and enough spells to actually last through a day's worth of combat.

I have a soft spot for firearms, but didn't want that soft spot to resolve into unnecessarily weakening a character just to apply.

Meh, that just brings it back around to having too many restrictions for an option that isn't necessarily better. I HATE when systems do this, but I'm more of a gamist than a realist.

Sylvanite, What's Warrior of Old do/from?

Damage isn't the highest thing in the priority list, but versatility really is and this does seem to have the versatility I was looking for along with a ranged option. Its the number of feats/options you need to take in order to just break even that irritates me. Much less the lack of ways to actually improve your output. Bows get gravity bow, guns get spells that boost accuracy against a specific creature or simply help you reload faster. In a book filled with firearm rules its sad that there are more spells that ruin firearms than their are that help firearms, but that's off topic.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

The Oracle is great, right? Wood Oracle is from Ultimate Magic. Their bonus spells are only so-so, but their revelations are pretty flavorful. They can warp wood, turn creatures into wood, talk to wood (why?), shoot thorns from their hands as caltrops, turn into a tree (again, why?), summon wooden armor, see through wood and plant material, gain the woodland stride ability, or create a specialized wooden spear-like weapon. The best one, and the main reason I suggested an Oracle with a bow, is that they can get a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls with wooden weapons, and it increases by +1 every five levels to +5 by 20th level.

Wood is way more specific in theme than some of the other mysteries, which is why I also suggested Battle. That one seems too good to be true. You can also take feats to get more revelations, or to use them more times in a day. All of the Battle revelations are useful for pretty much any kind of weapon, but you could definitely focus on a bow.

About the Spellslinger, let's take a look at what you're really losing versus gaining in return.

Arcane Bond: You still get this ability, but it's only in regards to any gun that's in your hands (and you can "attune" a different gun every morning if you like, so you aren't stuck with any one gun). While it does limit what kind of spells you can cast through it, you get to use your gun's enhancement bonus to increase the DC of your spells. That's pretty rad. Just don't use it after rolling a 1 or a 20, unless you can manage to repair it very quickly. Also, it seems best to stick with just a single one- or two-handed firearm for the crit modifier that comes with only having one gun.

Scribe Scroll: Since you're specializing in casting with guns, not scrolls, there really isn't a need for this. You basically get the starting "battered" firearm as a Gunslinger. Also, you can craft firearms, ammunition, and restore your gun to a better condition each day. Yay for non-exploding firearms!

Cantrips: I know this one hurts, and I feel for anyone...

Oh! So with the arcane school you still get those bonus spells, you just have to pick four instead of two restricted schools? I was interpreting it as you lost 4 schools but didn't get -any other benefit- other than the fact that you happen to use a gun from your other abilites (arcane gun, magic bullet).

I must have also skipped over the fact that arcane gun counted as a bonded object, still giving you the benefit of 1) +1 spell per day and 2) it fixes the broken condition when you prepare spells.

That makes it a lot more interesting and useful rather than just punitive.

Odd question. If you did pick Conjuration, could use use Acid Dart through the gun? Its a ranged touch attack.

Jack of Tales wrote:

After re-reading over Arcane bond, I think that simply picking a Rifle or Musket (depending on the GM) as the arcane bond and picking up Heirloom as one of the traits would fulfill what I want from the Spellslinger better than the Spellslinger can.

Keep in mind that ALL firearms are Exotic weapons - and the errata'd Heirloom weapon doesn't allow for Exotic weapons.

Well damn...pretty much no matter what I do to do it, its a fair number of resources for little benefit.

After re-reading over Arcane bond, I think that simply picking a Rifle or Musket (depending on the GM) as the arcane bond and picking up Heirloom as one of the traits would fulfill what I want from the Spellslinger better than the Spellslinger can.

I've never even looked at the Oracle until you mentioned it honestly. Wow, I'm loving some of these Mysteries! Where can I find the wood mystery? I'm not seeing it in the APG. I also love that the Oracle uses charisma. I love playing the Face character!

I was discussing the Spellslinger with a friend of mine when he pointed out something that I hadn't noticed. I had already been thinking that the shooting spells through guns would best be for debuffs/control spells due to the boost to spell DC's. I know that evocation is usually a terrible idea and I've seen that in action. Whenever the cleric tries to use Channel Energy against undead or the few times either he or the magus has cast Burning Hands, its done such minimal damage as to be kind of depressing (around 2-3 due to nearly everything making the saves each time). I can see shooting the occasional ray such as enfeebling touch though.

Something else I'd like to ask is..can the spellslinger be used with any other type of wizard? I'm confused as to whether it has the ability to specialize in a school or not. It says that School of the Gun replaces the Arcane school. Does this mean that you give up the ability to get extra spells just to cast magic through the gun? I am really loving the Arcane gun but it just seems as if the archetype loses more than it gains. I really hate how they make something that has fantastic flavor and ruin with with overtly harsh penalties.

Rex, luckily I tend to play with DM's who have the same mindset as I do about the game -- that it should be filled with usable and entertaining options. I think this comes from my current Dm and I playing a ton of 4e and wanting new things to be on-par with what's already there. I could probably convince him to use one of the cheaper options for guns such as the 10% or 25% cost options.

The new Ultimate Combat book has inspired me to create a new character for my current party. The party has only one ranged character - a halfling rogue(The rest of the party looks like this: a battle cleric, fighter, barbarian, magus and a mounted summoner. I'm currently playing and would be replacing the summoner). UC has many new archetypes mixing ranged weapons up with (mostly divine) casting classes like the Black powder inquisition for Inquisitors, the Ranged Spellstrike of the Myrmidarch Magus, Divine Hunter (archery) for paladins and the Holy gun paladin (firearms), Trophy Hunter Rangers (firearms) and finally the Spellslinger Wizard.

I'm wondering if any of these options are really 'trap' options. The arcane gun's ability to add an enhancement bonus to Spell DC's seems fantastic, but it looks like the spellslinger is unduly punished by having four restricted schools (OUCH?) and replacing cantrips with an ability easily replaced by regular spell-casting (magic bullet) which hurts at low levels. What I feel is overtly punishing is the spell-school penalty and the fact that read/detect magic now can only be cast as first level spells (really?). I'd have loved to play the archetype with just the arcane gun portion of it.

Holy gun seems interesting. Unfortunately, Paladins don't get access to any grit points until 11th level in the archetype, forcing them to have to pick up either a multi-class or the Amateur gunslinger feat. Its unfortunate that the feat uses Wisdom, which makes it pretty useless for the paladin.

Likewise, Divine Hunter seems to have good options at low level, but many of the aura replacements feel much weaker and, in general, are only useful if you happen to have other archers in the party. This is irritating because it pushes the archetype into either 1) having abilities that never function or 2) only playing the archetype in specific party setups unlike the generic paladin. I know that archetypes are for specific options, but it feels as if a regular paladin using a bow provides more to a party as long as the party does not have several other archers/gunners.

Are these opinions correct? Am I interpreting/understanding these archetypes right?

Another point I'd like to ask about is whether going with archery or firearms is a better (or close enough to actually be fairly equal) decision.

A Black Powder Inquisition inquisitor with the Amateur gunslinger feat seems interesting and useful. I see an upside in being able to ignore strength entirely (over needing some of it for extra damage with a bow) but at the same time, it uses up a domain and a feat and you'd still need to pick up PB shot and Precise shot simply to function in a typical encounter (once all of your allies engage all of the enemies in melee). How does this compare to a normal Archer Inquisitor?

How well doe the new bard archetypes stand up to the Arcane Duelist archer bard? It looks as if the Dervish Dancer's abilities are flavored toward melee combat but none of them require melee weapons.

I suppose I'm just interested to hear others opinions of these archetypes and also to get some advice on what type of ranged-gish/caster to play. I like the versatility of being able to cast a wide range of spells combined with possessing some actual class abilities and the ability to do some ranged combat. I'm not expecting the ranged combat to be as good as say, a Zen Archer or a Fighter with a bow, but the extra versatility of the class should be able to make the character useful in more circumstances than just combat.

So my best bet is going to be feat intensive..hm. I suppose I'll have to rely on full attacks & moving away afterward.

The only thing I can think of to accomplish what you want is to A) charge every other round, taking rounds in-between to set up OR B) get really good at Bull Rush maneuvers.

Get a weapon or a feat or some such that allows you to initiate a free bull rush on a successful hit. Make sure that you do not have to follow the target into the square it just left. Beating the target's CMD by 5 or more will move it an additional 5 feet for every 5 you beat it by, so at least 10 feet, enough room for another charge.

It isn't a guaranteed success every round, but it's the best I can come up with. I don't even think boots of teleportation would would work here to set you back up.

Using pathfinder rules only, I don't see any feats that'll do this. I didn't think of weapons, so I'll start looking there next.

I also forgot that the Eidolon will have reach since lances have reach and he'll be using those. [I know RAW quadrupeds/centaurs/etc don't get the 2x weapon damage with lances on a charge but the DM ruled that it made sense.]

Edit: It looks like there is a feat that can do this, kinda. Minotaur's charge requires Improved Bull rush and gives a free bull rush on a charge. However, you need to have powerful charge. I don't think there's an evolution for that..hmm

I know this has been asked before, but the answer I read wasn't as clear as I would have liked.

It looks like in alpha/beta the SMI list included Riding dog which was changed to dog which was changed back to riding dog.

I've heard someone mention that it should have been dog and there is official errata for it being a dog instead of riding dog. I'd like to know which is the correct monster for the list. At the moment my DM and I are running it as a dog rather than riding dog, leaving much weaker options for combat.

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice on how to easily repeat the charge action round after round. What are some of the ways that you can either move enough squares away from your target that you can charge them again next round? Or ways that you can move the target far enough away that you can charge them again next round?

I believe you need at least 10 feet of room to be able to charge. While the character who is mounted will have reach, I'll also be using an Eidolon who will not have reach.

Is it pathfinder only or Paizo only? Super Genius Games has a supplement for PF called the death mage, who gets Leadership for free, but everything must be undead.

I don't know. In our 4e game we've thrown around a bit of homebrew but haven't used any 3rd party stuff (hard to when you rely on the CB so much). I'll take a look at the class and then throw it over at him if I like it to see what he thinks.

In general, clerics were the best necromancers, but now with the Truename arcane discovery, necromancer wizards may be better. They can get minions from Animate Dead, Leadership to get someone who controls undead too, and an Outsider who listens to the wizard. Also, they can craft golems easier.

I knew that they had the kickass golem-making discovery where they can pick one type of golem, make it cheaper/faster and without spending 3 feats. I'll have to look through UM again though for the truename discovery. Any chance you could give me a rundown of what it does?

I haven't yet asked if I can grab leadership at 7th, but that's quite a ways away anyway and would be planned for if allowed on any character. What's more interesting than one PC? Two PC's. Plus a miniature household of NPC's that can run errands (as long as you make sure not to make any other PC's completely useless, eh?).

Well, as a GM and a player I would caution you not to get too excited about the ability to have an army of undead at your beck and call without first discussing this with your GM and even your other players.

The reason 4e doesn't allow this is because a character that can control an army results in a player hogging the majority of play time, and that's been determined to be badwrongfun by the game designers.

And imho they have a point.

If I were your GM I would probably try to discourage you from this because I simply don't want to have to keep track of all your toadies. I've got my own army of toadies already to deal with and I don't want the other players firing up World of Warcraft on their laptops as you play PF Napoleon.

The GM is aware that the only reason I want to play PF is due to minion-mastering. Also, I tend to be the fastest person at the table due to rolling most attack/damage rolls during the turn before mine unless its against a target that may drop on that turn.

One thing that 3.5/Pathfinder does that 4e can't do in the slightest is allow a player to have multiple creatures/monsters. I would like to see what the community's opinions on the various options of doing these are. Which are better than others, what's considered the 'best' at which part, etc.

I like the Summoner class alot, but have the feeling that the broodmaster archetype is very weak compared to the original class. Having multiple actions a round is only good if you can really do anything useful with those actions. Has anyone played one of these at low levels (we are starting at level 1) or seen one in play? I haven't found much about playing them anywhere online.

It looks like the Alchemist has a number of ways of creating zombie minions also. Is there enough there for it to compete with a summoner?

With using simply Pathfinder-Only materials, how good capable is the traditional Undead-Master cleric?

What other ways are there for controlling multiple creatures in a battlefield? I'd like to play something that can get at least a fair handful, preferably some of them permanent (either through permanent undead or eidolons or anything similar). I'd like the summons/etc/whatever to get stronger as we level up and possible increase in number. Most importantly, I don't want to end up with a miniature group that can make a number of attacks/actions but not actually succeed in doing any significant damage/control/etc.

Without giving away any spoilers, could I get some advice on whether to go with a druid, wizard or a summoner in the following party?

So far we have a rogue, cleric, monk, fighter and a magus. The battlefield looks like it'll be pretty crowded already with nearly every (not sure on rogue) player in melee. I'd prefer to run a summoner (possibly broodmaster to provide an armada of ranged archers to the group) but am not too adverse to giving a wizard a try. While I love the summoning and persistent pets of the broodmaster, a wizard has some cool versatility and the druid just has awesome abilities (I love the shapechange + the animal companion). Where do you see the biggest problems with the current party in terms of making it through the adventure (alive)?

I have not found an answer and am not sure if it has already been brought up elsewhere, but I would like to know if the Summoner can select the Large evolution -even after using it to increase the number of summons he has.-

For example, spending 4 evolution points to get 1 medium and 2 small eidolons and then picking Large for the medium eidolon. Typically, you can not select an evolution more than once unless it specifically says you can. However, this is an odd case where the size evolution is being used in a different manner.

Barbarian 1/Alchemist 1/Synthesist 18. Biped evolutionary form.

These are the kind of builds I love to see. Its not a full caster, and it won't have anywhere near as many attacks as a fighter. I won't argue that its "balanced" but you'd have to compare it to what other classes can do at level 20 (i.e. Create a freaking Demi-plane with x2 Time). Its the true epitome of Mr. Hyde. A genteel man who dabbled in alchemy and magic and suddenly can allow his inner-self out, which happens to be a huge-sized freakish monstrosity that is also very pissed off and has its own agenda.

Cheapy wrote:

No advice, but doesn't any equipment that the eidolon is using not travel back with him when he is dismissed? How will you carry 5 giant blades?

OT question, but I wonder if it would be legal to make a eidolon-only feat that would allow them to retain at least a few pieces of gear when they are dismissd and recalled?

Its a homebrew feat idea, so of course its legal. That said, if I didn't already have a wagon and didn't plan to get leadership I'd just ask my DM if the gear could be kept on the Eidolon. It makes more sense to me that it keeps its gear anyway.

As an aside, I started to run the numbers using the DPR formula in the DPR Olympics.

Assuming the same Eidolon build for each go, not paying attention to items outside of +1 weapon and +2 belt of strength, and ignoring all buffs (+2 from charge, likelihood of having Heroism and possibly Bull's Strength or an Enlarge Person for size Huge), the Sawtooth Sabres come out WAY ahead of 5 Elven Curve blades. [I ran the Elven Curve swords with the wrong bonus and they ended up being at nearly exactly the same as the sawtooth sabres. I didn't bother to re-do all of it since lowering the attack bonus by nearly 4 really ruins it for being anywhere near comparison)

I haven't looked at the Falcata or Kukri's using Imp. Critical instead of Power Attack yet. I'll post those numbers after!

Current Winner: 10x Sawtooth Sabres @ 126.62 [Excluding all buffs]

Edit 1: Kukri with Weapon Focus & Imp.Critical: 102.33
Kukri with Power Attack & Imp.Critical: 112.27
Edit2: Falcata with Wep. focus & Imp. Critical: 105.43
5x Elven Curve Blade with Imp. Critical: 102.3

But there IS a rule stating that using many arms works along the same rules as two-weapon fighting. Read the multiattack feat, I think that is the one. I'm not near my books.

Multi-weapon fighting is the one. Multi-attack reduces the penalty for using secondary natural attacks to -2.

Reach weapons now and reach weapons forever.

I was going to go with a quadruped so I could pick up Pounce. The mobility it offers really appeals to me and if our games stay the way they are now (only level 2,but DM is offering the choice to re-build characters at the moment) then the ability to get that distance + full attack is going to be very useful. There tends to be a fair amount of space between us and the enemy.

EDIT: Do reach weapons provide threatening reach on a Large size, quadruped Eidolon? If not, is reach still even useful when you take into account the drop from either crit-range or damage?

I had read Tarantula's summoner build in the DPS olympics thread but the idea of mounting as a quadruped doesn't appeal to me. I am going to see if the DM will allow me to get the bonus damage from lances when charging as a quadruped though, it makes some thematic sense to me at least.

EDIT2: Puregamer, I do like the sawtooth sword idea! Both a pretty cool sounding weapon and optimized to be good. I'll have to see if I could switch weapons later on..I'm so used to 4e's retraining rules that its hard to decide on something that will last for 20 levels!

No advice, but doesn't any equipment that the eidolon is using not travel back with him when he is dismissed? How will you carry 5 giant blades?

The party is part of a military group, we have a swarm of wagons. Plus I'll have leadership and a miniature crew of specialists to help carry gear.

@Jadeite: 1d8 (boosted to 1d10 when Large) pummeling is less exciting than a barrage of swords, but I'll probably work out numbers just to see how MUCH better it is. I figure the weapons won't be cost effective but with a Wizard crafting cohort, the cost will be diminished somewhat.

I asked about the multi-weapon fighting bit over in the rules forum and no one really had an answer. I'll be asking the DM how he'd rule it. I have a feeling I can convince him that they'll use 1.0 Str modifier on the arms.

However, it looks like everyone is saying that its much more useful to just pick up more attacks over the two-handed weapon array. I know its another five attacks, but those five attacks will all only be at +5 damage versus +10 damage.

Also, I wonder what's better. Critting x2 on 16-20 or critting x3 on 18-20. [Falcata versus Kukri] The advantage of the kukri is that there'd be a lower penalty to hit, only -2 instead of -4..Damn. I'll have to run numbers to see. I like the idea of the summon having this whirling cyclone of blades spring out around them.

Hello, I'd like some help and opinions on selecting a weapon for my Eidolon. I plan on using the Exotic or Martial WP feat so she'll only be able to use one weapon type.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards using Elven Curve Swords. She'll have ten arms, wielding five of these swords at once. I figured I could pick up Improved Critical on them to have 2d8 (Large size Eidolon) and critting on 16-20. Is this a good choice?

Would it make more sense to pick a 1H weapon and wield 10 weapons at once? I figured the damage bonus from getting Full strength on the two-handed offhands (rather than 1.5 or .5 because its two-handed offhand) would be stronger than an extra 5 attacks with only a .5 strength bonus. Her strength would be at ~30 by level 10 (+10 bonus).

Also, is picking up Weapon Focus due to the low hit of Eidolon's a good choice? Or would it make more sense to pick up Power Attack? Or both and drop the Imp. Critical?

Jack of Tales wrote:

I'm playing a summoner and I had planned to have an Eidolon who uses multiple arms with multiple greatswords or Elven Curve Swords(the summon itself is flavored to have multiple invisible arms ala Elfen Lied).

I'm confused on how this works. Say I have 10 limbs and am holding 5 swords in each pair of limbs. Would one set count as the "primary" when using multi-weapon rules? If so, what would the strength bonus be on all of the arms? Normally a THW gets 1.5 Str. Would an off-Hand, THW get 1.0 strength or .5 strength?

I would hit the FAQ button. You will most likely get a different ruling from every GM until something official is stated.

Thanks, I didn't even really know what that was until you mentioned it. I've hit it for an answer! Next time I play with my friends I'll ask the DM what he thinks it should be too, for his game.

I know I've seen a chart somewhere that pointed out placing typical magic item bonuses on different slots than normal. For example, instead of a Cloak of Resistance, Gloves or Bracers of Resistance. I think that was 3.5 though.
Where does Pathfinder have rules on which slots you can place resistance, attribute, etc. bonuses? I cannot seem to find them in the Magic item creation section.

I'm playing a summoner and I had planned to have an Eidolon who uses multiple arms with multiple greatswords or Elven Curve Swords(the summon itself is flavored to have multiple invisible arms ala Elfen Lied).

I'm confused on how this works. Say I have 10 limbs and am holding 5 swords in each pair of limbs. Would one set count as the "primary" when using multi-weapon rules? If so, what would the strength bonus be on all of the arms? Normally a THW gets 1.5 Str. Would an off-Hand, THW get 1.0 strength or .5 strength?

Ok first of all when you enlarge your weapons enlarge too, so you won't need to have a large weapon at hand.

Second if you are taking the heirloom trait why not take a longbow?

Also i think that allowing armor for the eidolon isn't a good idea.

There's no point taking a longbow if you have no strength.

I didn't know about that Enlarge person would enlarge weapons also. That's good to know!

I took the greatsword over an exotic weapon because of damage dice. It didn't seem as if the Elven Curved Sword was any better than the greatsword, although it did have a 18-20 crit range.

On consideration I'm going to go with:
Half-Elf
Alternate trait for Arcane Training. Adaptability goes toward Use Magic Device.

Str: 7
Dex: 16
Con: 13
Int: 7
Wis:7
Cha:19

The DM is giving us 1 trait and forcing the other to be Heirloom. We start with 1 MW weapon (from the heirloom), 1 free mundane item of any type (which has to get passed by him) and then 450gp of gear. I figure I'll pick up like...a MW heavy repeating crossbow or something to help out at low levels. The 450 will go toward a MW greatsword for the Eidolon. The free mundane will be a large-size greatsword for when he's enlarged.

The rest of the character:
Skills: Diplomacy (from the Fiendish Presence trait), Use Magic Device, Linguistics (for Ignan to talk to summons in the future. Recommendations on what else to take would be helpful. I'll probably go through the summon monster list again before settling on something.)

Feats: Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Spells:
0: Guidance, Message, Read/Detect Magic
1: Grease, Mage Armor

Eidolon:
Quadruped
Skills: Perception, Acrobatics, Climb, Stealth
Feats: MWP(Greatsword)

Evolutions: Imp. Nat armor, Limbs (arms)

The DM may be allowing armor to be used on the summon so I may take Shield instead of Mage armor.

I would suggest a halfling summoner that tends to be hidden while buffing. Go with the following point buy:

STR 05
INT 14
WIS 07
DEX 16
CON 14
CHA 19

Traits: Make diplomacy & bluff class skills
Feats: Spell focus: conj, Augment Summoning, Skill focus: stealth, Hellcat stealth, item creation feat (if needed by 9th otherwise).

Skills would include diplomacy, bluff, stealth, UMD, dips into other CHA skills & fly, possibly dips in to a knowledge or two.

-James

You're pretty on the ball with what the group will be playing. The barb is going the route of a rage prophet. The monk decided he was going to play a melee cleric instead since its hard to get all of the stats needed for monk with 20 point buy.

I have a bias against halflings, I don't like the race. We are using traits but I also feel that going full caster doesn't net the summoner anything. You get an additional 3-4 spells spread out over the first four slots and you get more Summon Monster uses then you'll ever likely need. Since the summoner's spells rely primarily with buff/debuff, he won't have much to do in combat after tossing the spells onto his summon. The one advantage is that spells like Grease become useful due to a higher Cha. UMD would also be much higher, which is good.

However, for the first 3 or so levels the summoner will be stuck standing around for half of the combat after dropping one spell due to not wanting to waste every slot each fight. I suppose I don't see the advantages of an extra spell at 2nd/3rd and +1 or +2 to spell DC's over the ability to always take part in the combat regardless of how many spells he has left for the day.

Hmm..although that build you tossed up doesn't have bad dex, so it could still use a crossbow well at low levels. So I guess full caster WOULD be better..

Thanks for the advice on Scribe Scroll, I forgot that you can only scribe spells that you know.

Does the reach of the Eidolon come with more area that provokes opportunity attacks? I was going to go quadraped to get the full attack on a charge. What can the biped do that'll give it push/pull on regular attacks? If I go this route, the summon will be much more tanky and sticky, correct?

I'll be starting in a new PF group and had already chosen to play a summoner before the rest of the party figured out what they wanted. I'd like to tweak the class to fit best into what we have.

We've got a barbarian/oracle, monk, alchemist and a rogue.

The summoner is currently built as an Archer with decent charisma. The reason for this is wanting to have something that the summoner could do other than simply buffing. The Eidolon will be a pounce-happy, weapon wielding quadraped.

We're starting at level 1 with 20 point buy.

Should I dump the archer idea and instead boost Con so for a buffer, HP heavy Eidolon? Additionally, we won't have that much utility spellcast power so I was thinking of dumping Str/Dex to bump Con and to boost Cha even more and grabbing Scribe Scroll, etc for utility casting. Thoughts?