On the contrary I see far more people playing characters who would struggle to exist outside of adventuring. Its rare for characters to bother with an actual profession and crafting seems limited to making magic gear.
I generally build my characters with at least 1 rank in a craft or profession skill, often times more. I see all these basket weaving jokes, and I wonder how Steelgrip the Goliath Barbarian, master of throwing boulders and weaving baskets, would feel about being made fun of.
Yeah, I agree with Marthian - sorcerer is what you point new players to when they ask to be a wizard. It's not hard at all as long as yo help him out with spell selection for a few levels.
Done correctly, I think the aboleth deserves mention as a horrifying creature. No encounter should ever be had that they don't come off as cold, evil and alien.
Plus aquatic combat. Shiver.
I think aberrations generally make for fantastic, scary foes. I've got an aberration heavy campaign right now that is sure to frighten.
But it is Paizo's duty to make sure there is a semblance of balance in the system they put out so players aren't restricted in their choices to feel competitive. This system poses serious issues to already challenged classes.
I know it's something a lot of people are hoping for (myself included); will there be support for kobolds with non-chromatic ancestry? Metallic alone would be nice, but I had a player in my last campaign who was a heavens oracle kobold with sky dragon ancestry. He was dark blue, had little lightning-bolt shaped horns, and an impressive fu man chu. In addition, I let the kobold dragon breath feat give him a cone of lightning, as befit his ancestry. Support for all that stuff would just be fantastic. Will we see any of this?
I'm starting to think the standard action is unfairly favorable towards casters, so 1 is probably the best choice. Metis's suggestion s interesting too, and worth thinking more about.
Well, this was quicker than expected! I've finished up the introduction and the first two sections, Races and Paths. I'll be adding the rest over the next two or three weeks.
Now, before you grumble at me about how this is in the wrong forum, I would at least request that this be added to the Gude to the Class Guides. If you mods think moving it is really necessary, whatevs, but just put it up in there. Third parties need some loving, too.
Back on topic! Give me any criticism you have on this here guide of mine. I'm all ears. Not guaranteeing implementation, but I will definitely consider it and keep your advice in mind.
Fiendish heritage is pretty much meaningless now. Developers have come out and said a number of times to ignore it and Blood of Fiends didn't include it. You can choose whatever heritage you want without a feat.
I would go sorcerer. I would use a feat for prehensile tail, then, because fiendish sorcery is great. You'd want to go demon-spawned with the abyssal bloodline. You'll get an effective +4 to charisma (race, fiendish sorcery) for everything sorcerer related. You won't get the familiar without eldritch heritage, however. If you're absolutely set on the familiar, I would go devil-spawned and the appropriate bloodline into diabolist.
Abyssal tiefling summoner (potentially going demoniac) would be an absolute terror, to be sure. You would have great save DCs, tons and tons of spells, really nasty summoned beasties everywhere whenever you wanted, and you could be a decent melee mage too with your strength boosts, claws, and spells like bull's strength, rage, stoneskin, and transformation. This would be a really fun character, to wade in there with your summoned hordes and start smashing away,
I'm building a mercenary NPC that I'm hoping will become a recurring enemy for my party, appearing without warning and relentlessly attacking them until he can't go on anymore.
There are three things I want to achieve with him, in order of importance:
1. He is extremely hard to kill or even stop. High saves, high HP, high AC.
2. He is effective at shutting down casters. It's a magic-heavy bunch and he's sepcifically after a halfling sorcerer in the party.
3. He needs to be able to deal damage in combat enough to actually be scary when he shows up.
A few things that won't change: He's a half-orc and he's an unbreakable fighter. Don't try and convince me otherwise. Not interested. Right now I've got him at level five for his first encounter with the party, and they're level 2.5ish (using SKR's step-leveling). They'e also not a party ideal for front-line combat; they're an archer ranger, an arcane duelist, a TWF rogue, and a shadow sorcerer. They're more comfortable infiltrating and stuff, which is part of what will make this guy so scary.
I think the more important question here (it certainly is for me) is how to know what to prepare. People always brag that wizards are the kings of versatility, but how do you know what's coming up? It seems so easy to get caught in a situation you're unprepared for. Sure, you could prepare the same list of generally useful spells every day, but why not play a sorcerer, then? You'll get more of them, and better class features.
...I am just waiting to see if or when Paizo offers up their own rules for Psionics before I allow this stuff to introduced into any of my games.
I imagine that somewhere on Paizo's To-Do list, psionics will be eventually be re-imagined Paizo-style if for no other reason than to support Lashunta/Castrovel and Vudra adventures. When that happens, I will treat Paizo and Dreamscarred psionics as two forks of the psionics tree... like the coexistance of Buddhism and Hinduism, or the various schools of martial arts, or distros of Linux, or whatever metaphor seems most applicable. Both are/will be balanced for the Pathfinder mechanics and against the non-psionics classes, so whichever you wish to play is fine with me.
And really, Ultimate Psionics should spur additional sales of the various Paizo corebooks, modules, and adventure paths too, so win-win all around.
This is exactly how I view it. And honestly, I might reflavor Paizo psionics as something else - in my heart, DSP is psionics. What I hope, despite the fact that it won't ever happen, is some form of official backing of DSP's stuff by Paizo as the psionics. And then maybe even some collaboration.
They could make things that shouldn't be conjuration or transmutation spells into the proper school. It'd be nice if mage armor was abjuration and healing spells were necromancy.
1. Reliance on gear is a massive sacred cow in this game. People apparently like the idea that a mighty warrior stripped of his gear can't hardly defend himself. It's more "realistic."
My favorite's gotta be Dreamscarred Press. They have created a true love of psionics in me. They'e so well balanced, and their new classes (not the updated XPH ones) are extremely creative, particularly Aegis, Tactician, and Cryptic.
I've become a fan of Abandoned Arts and their class act series. Creative, short books worth giving a look. They just need to expand to more classes. Right now, I think they've just got stuff for Fighters, Wizards, Clerics, Rangers, Druids, Witches, and Barbarians. I think.
Super Genius Games also has their excellent bullet points series. I don't have anything else of theirs, but bullet points are great, and there's a million of them.
Will there be more psionic options for non-psionic classes? A psionic domain, paladin oath against psions, psionic eidolon evolutions, spells related to psionics (particularly anti-psionic spells), psionic masterpieces, a psychic bloodline, even psionic rage powers? These sorts of things could be all kinds of cool. I loved what you did for the rogue, fighter, and monk; why not expand along those lines?
The Silmarillion, as stated earlier, is a great example for mythic characters. Fingolfin's battle with Morgoth at the Ruin of Beleriand, Turin's slaying of Glaurung, Feanor crafting the Silmarils, Melian warding Thingol's domain, Beren and Luthien's escape from Morgoth. These are all great examples of what mythic characters should be able to accomplish.
Don't forget Ecthelion killing Gothmog, Captain of the Balrogs at the fall of Gondolin, or Glorfindel sacrificing himself to slay a balrog as the survivors fled into the mountains! The Children of Hurin would also be a good source, insofar as it goes into more detail about that section of the Silmarillion.
Tolkien is generally a fantastic source for mythic stuff.
As for some examples of what I think a mythic martial character should be capable of without magic, off the top of my head:
-Shouldering a boulder rolling down a mountain so it explodes instead of flattening him.
-Firing an arrow over a mountain at an unseen foe.
-Smashing a city wall with a single blow.
-Holding a dragon by the tail to prevent him from flying away.
-Tearing off a giant's head (or other limbs) with his bare hands.
-Pulling a ship while swimming.
-Holding up the roof of a collapsing cave.
-Smithing a minor artifact.
-Carrying a huge or larger statue out of a temple on his back.
-Throwing an axe that beheads multiple enemies.
-Bouncing a projectile around multiple corners to hit a target.
-Pounding the ground to send fissures towards an approaching army.
-Felling an entire forest in one day.
-Holding her breath for hours or days.
-Running without stopping for weeks.
-Collapsing a volcano's crater to prevent it from erupting.
The Silmarillion, as stated earlier, is a great example for mythic characters. Fingolfin's battle with Morgoth at the Ruin of Beleriand, Turin's slaying of Glaurung, Feanor crafting the Silmarils, Melian warding Thingol's domain, Beren and Luthien's escape from Morgoth. These are all great examples of what mythic characters should be able to accomplish.
People seem to be ignoring the silvanshee posts in this thread. Lay on hands as a paladin of your level with decent charisma, crazy fly speed (90 ft?), constant invisibility, DDoor, stabilize. For other purposes, commune, truespeech, pounce with heroic strength, best scout. Also they're cats.
How do I do it? I really have no idea where to start. This is more for a typical NPC enemy, not a specific characer, so only levels 1-4 are of major concern. If you have ideas for higher levels, please share, though.
The classic mongolian horse archer was lightly armored, fast as hell, and would run circles around heavily armored knights, peppering them and their horses with arrows.
What class is best? Mounted rager seems good thematically, but has obvious issues in the archery department. Ranger is probably the best choice (companion when it matters, bonus feats) but what else would be good?
Feats? Ride-by-attack would be ideal except you have to charge, so it needs to be a melee attack. Which leaves us with shot on the run, a prerequisite heavy feat which isn't even that useful. Anything I'm missing, and what else is essential? Oddly enough, precise shot is not a big necessity because there will probably be no allies in melee, only enemies. They would retreat and shoot rather than go into melee.
Hirandhana quickly changes his persona from simple inspector to smooth-talking lady-killer. "Listen, Jan. I saw how you were looking at me out there. You wanted it. But you can't have it, not yet. I need to you to do me a favor. I'm dealing with more than airship inspections in Trigen. If things get hairy, I need you to be able to get me out of there fast. I know we just met, but baby, you want this. Trust me." Diplomacy 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12
Some background and history. More modern culture to come.
In the land of Huulirno, no one has ever seen the sun, or the stars, or the moon. It has never rained or snowed. There has never been a winter or a summer, nor a spring or fall. There is no day and there is no night. To the people in the subterranean land of Huulirno, time is measured only in seconds and lifetimes; the drip of acidic water from the roof of the cave, the passing of the king. The lack of clear measurement for time means that the concept is a vague one, rarely thought of to the people there. Since there are no natural cycles, only comparisons will do. History is vague, with events more mixed up the further back one studies.
In Huulirno, they know nothing of a surface there; to them, all is endless rock, riddled with caverns and passageways. The variety in this underground world, however, is astounding. There are grand waterfalls, vast fields of spikes and spires, massive fungal forests, great open spaces filled with flying beasts, narrow passages riddled with the blind troglodytes that scramble and compete. Everywhere life attempts, successfully or not, to scratch a living from the bare rock that surrounds and oppresses those who are not fit to live there.
Long before any other races arose in this land, the flumphs were undisputed kings. How long is impossible to say; perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago. The highest scholars have theories, some with fossil evidence, on how the flumphs came to be. One theory suggests that they are a highly evolved fungus, gaining sentience and magical talent to adapt to their world. The major competing theory is that flumphs are the result of magical experiments from a previous, now extinct race. Called the polimbs by those who believe in them, this creator race is said to have created the flumphs from simple floating colonies, much like coral in the sea. For whatever reason, the polimbs saw that these float-corals had the potential for something more, and created the flumphs. What exactly happened to the polimbs is a mystery. While there are some ruins from an ancient civilization, many believe these are simply from early flumph societies. The polimb theory is appealing to the flumphs, because they created many of the other sentient races that populate Huulirno.
The derhii were the first race created by the flumphs. In the huge fungal forests that cover the largest caverns, great pale apes swung through the mushrooms, smarter than most animals. The flumphs tamed these beasts as labor animals in their early years, and eventually began to enhance them magically, giving them great feathered wings and increased intelligence. Slowly, these flying apes grew into the derhii, gaining true sentience. The flumphs, always a benevolent race, granted the derhii their own lands in the fungal forests. To this day, however, derhii culture is mistrustful of the flumphs, and most of the flying apes prefer to remain separate from the affairs of other races.
As the derhii slowly grew into sentience, the flumphs continued to experiment. Their next creations were the fauns. Taking another race of apes, these ones with less hair and muscle, but an upright stature, the flumphs infused them with the very spirit of nature, and mixed in the blood of climbing goats, so that they could travel difficult terrain with ease, keeping up with the floating flumphs. These mystical goat-men developed into the fauns, gaining sentience just as the derhii before them. The fauns gained more of the flumphs' good spirit than the derhii; they we also far more interested in exploring the wild world around them than magical experiments and structured society. The flumphs let them be free and independent, but gave them no land. Instead, the flumph king declared that "All fauns are to be free; they will have no lands of their own, for they are bound to Hurrlino itself, and all of nature is theirs to share." To this day, fauns and flumphs harbor a friendly relationship.
The same upright apes that were adapted by the flumphs into fauns also evolved on their own, mostly unnoticed by the aberrant kingdom around them. Two species developed; the dwarves and the drow. Both were intelligent and capable. The dwarves saw the flumphs from the shadows, and they emulated the older race's society. When they attracted the flumphs' attention, they were given aid and guidance, but not magically altered. Today, dwarven society is intertwined with flumph society, focused on magic and knowledge and the promotion of good.
At the same time, the drow forged their own path. They remained hidden from the flumphs. Only the dwarves knew of their existence, and were too ashamed of their cousins to tell the flumphs. The drow were fiercely independent. They believed that they had to raise themselves up as a species, distinct from the overbearing flumphs. Over time, their separation grew into resentment and bitterness. While they struggled, they received no aid; they would have refused it if given, but needed it sorely as drow societies failed from within and faced assault from the wild beasts and dragons of Huulirno. Now, the drow are a race devoted to independence, valuing freedom above all else.
The best way to keep your party going is to force them to make characters with solid backstories and motivations and friends and foes, and then make them game revolve around those things. Cater to each character's strengths at diffent times, and focus on their weaknesses at others. I had a similar campaign, but I was given a link to a book that's a system-neutral guide to GMing. It's really changed the way I do what I do. When I read the book, I killed the current campaign (at level three) and started a new one using the advice in the book. It's called Gamemastering, by Brian Jamison. It's available as a free pdf via google search. I strongly encourage you give it a look and see if you think it will help.
A player of mine is playing a grenadier alchemist. They just got to level two, and I realized what kind of awesome things he could do with the character. With the free martial proficiency, alchemical weapon, and explosive missile, he can become quite the explosive archer.
The thought process goes like so: I figured since he was already taking ranged feats, using a bow as his martial weapon is a good choice. It's also a solid backup for when he runs out of bombs, which is a possibility with the long, punishing days I put my players through. He can use all his alchemist fires, acid flasks, etc. on his bow, as well as his bombs with the explosive missile discovery. He's less a bomber and more a rocketer. A dex mutagen will help with his to-hit, partially making up for his med BAB. He's going to be constantly making alchemical items (with the aid of this fantastic table, courtesy of Eric Clingenpeel), so he'll have plenty of things to augment his attacks.
My only real concern is a lack of feats. I don't think he wants to dip at all, so what feats are most essential for this character, in terms of archery and others? Also, can explosive bomb be combined with fast bombs?
Magic missile, perhaps? I can't think of a more iconic spell in all of gaming. Mage armor would be a good one, too. Shocking grasp has become pretty iconic for the magus. Silent image is another solid choice. That's just what I think of off the top of my head for good choices, I'm sure you've thought of those and more.
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Also, and this is a little rules iffy, I've come to the conclusion that you can use your SNA SLAs while your eidolon is out. Nowhere does it say you can't, as opposed with other archetypes.
A good point made by fnipernackle aabout the sunsystems like girt, ki, and the arcana pool. They arent just SLAs with aa certain number of uses. They are flavorful and add diversity to the classes. I rather like them.
I think one word class names are always a better choice, for whatever reason. I like the idea of not going the full spellcasting route. d8, 3/4 BAB, eldritch blast, bloodline-esque pacts. The pacts should all be related to a specific type or subtype of creature. Fey are an obvious first choice, as are demons and devils. It would be interesting to see acts be viewed not as evil, so pacts with diffent types of celestials (azatas, archons, agathions) would be very interesting to see. Eventually you should try to have every type of outsider have their own pact, if possible. I would love a qlippoth or aeon pact warlock.
I was out doing hard work yesterday, and I was inspired by the profusion of earthworms. I decided my world needed more weirdness, so I statted and cultured up some worm people called annelidians. Here's the stats:
:
Annelidian stats:
+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Cha: Annelidians are quick, flexible, curious, and logical, but they are also extremely strange and often unsettling to outsiders.
Darkvision 60 ft.
Slow Speed: 20 ft.
Burrow Speed: 20 ft. Annelidians can breathe while burrowing unless the ground is overly muddy, in which case they must move deeper or go to the surface
Slippery: Annelidians are coated in a thin layer of slimy mucus that makes them hard to hold on to. They gain a +2 bonus on their CMD against grapple attacks and to Escape Artist checks.
Legless: Annelidians do not possess legs. This makes them slow, but they are difficult to trip. They gain a +4 bonus to their CMD against trip attacks.
Strange Appearance: Annelidians take a -2 penalty on all Diplomacy and Disguise checks with humanoids unfamiliar with their appearance. They also have a +2 bonus on bluff checks against non annelidians, because other humanoids are not sure how to read their body language.
Narrow: Annelidians are proportionately thin, and can squeeze and fit in tight places as a small creature.
Regenerative: Annelidians heal quickly and can totally recover from major wounds, even loss of body parts. They heal hit points from rest and long-term care at twice the rate of other species. They are also capable of regrowing any lost body part given enough time. The exact speed is according to GM discretion, but minor or simple wounds, such as the tip of a tentacle, should take a day or two and major wounds, such as an entire tentacle or eye being lost, should take one to two weeks. They also recover physical ability damage at twice the normal rate.
Moist: Annelidians require that they remain somewhat moist at all times. Dry heat and sunlight are very dangerous to their physiology. If an annelidian goes for an hour in high temperatures and sunlight without being covered in water, they begin to dry out. After the first hour, they lose access to their slippery and regenerative racial abilities. Every hour after that, they take 1 point of Con damage. If the annelidian can go back undergoing, submerge itself in water, or if it is sufficiently humid and wet outside, they can avoid these penalties. To recover this damage non-magically, an annelidian must be submerged in water or mud. It immediately regains its slippery and regenerative racial abilities and begins to gain back 2 points of Con per hour.
Languages: Annelidians begin play knowing Annelidian, a verbal and nonverbal language. They are capable of communicating ideas using only the verbal or nonverbal portions of the language, but it is slower and less able to get across complex ideas without using both. Annelidians with high intelligence can also learn Common, Elven, Gnome, Terran, Undercommon, or Dwarven.
Balanced?
Also, their culture is heavily focused on reuse and rebirth, since they just eat rotting organic matter. I've got about two pages of culture and such written so far I can post if you so desire.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Is it too preposterous?
So, I love flumphs. How could you not? Friendly floating flattened space octopus? It's great! That 1 CR is a killer, though. I want my flumphs (or at least one or two of them) to head out with a party of adventurers slaying dragons. The solution: Class levels! The question: What levels would a flumph take? (I'm certainly not adverse to throwing the flumph some ability score increases ala PCs, if necessary)
Cleric is an easy one. Wisdom's good and they could
Sorcerer I like for flavor reasons. Mostly because a flumph accessing its aberrant nature to fight evil seems just swell to me.
Rogue? Imagine getting sneak attacked by one of those nasty poison stingers. Ouch!
So, what say you? How would a flumph level up, for the purposes of minmaxing, role playing, and/or goofy flumph heroing? Discuss!
Edit: And don't think that I don't understand flumphs are supposed to be goofy little advisors and guides. I'm all for that. But I would like the occasional flumph to be unsatisfied with sitting and watching while others go about saving the day. Then he pursues the art of magusry and eventually defeats the grave knight half-fiend antipaladin overlord on the world's highest peak as their armies watch in silent anticipation.
I have an iPad app called DnD sheets. It lets me create all my NPCs relatively easily. I'm sure it's not as great as hero lab, but it supports pathfinder and auto-calculates most stats.
For an example of what I do, one of my players is a busty elf maiden. She's all sorts of sexy. But her charisma is nothing special because she's far too aloof to connect with people. So when she tried to seduce a human guard, it failed because she really only talked about how impossibly hot she was compared to lowly humans.
While I think that there is already a good number of 20-level base classes, I think that Pathfinder could benefit a great deal from adding a few more. Yes, the archetype system allows for a great deal of diversity and customization in addition to the choices that can already be made with a class. And yes, I know that WotC overdid it, but I think the issue with 3.5 class bloat was more with prestige classes than base classes. I don't want ten or probably even five more. But I firmly believe that Paizo could easily create 2 or 3 more truly distinct classes. With the possible exception of the witch and wizard, I don't think any current classes have too much overlap.
So, should there be more classes, even just a few? I would like to see an 8+int skills class without a sneak attack derivative that took a different approach than the rogue. Also, a spontaneous caster that uses the druid spell list. Thoughts, suggestions, criticism?
Forgive me for saying so, but I don't see much point in it. Why make it like everything else, just with different names? Again that has a really 4E sound to it when I repeat it in my head. Part of the fun of 3E is the fact different classes play and function differently. I mean, Barbarians play differently from Druids who play differently from Alchemists, etc. Why class-bloat by making a class that is just a wizard or sorcerer who uses some spells that are named after some psionic powers, but stripping them of anything interesting they ever did?
This. It's why I love good alternate systems like psionics and incarnum. Flavor should be expressed in the rules. It makes things feel like they are different in the the game when they work differently.
"We cornered his drunken ass in the Goblin last time. This time, we won't show any mercy. We'll kill him for what he did to Larur, and then he'll tell us where Lil is."-- Braddon Hurst
