Jakynth's page

Excruciating Deformation

Your touch attack causes your target to become painfully malformed. Its limbs twist and buckle, while its body contorts uncontrollably, shifting and warping. Each round the target suffers excruciating pain and takes 2d6 points of nonlethal damage, 1 point of Dexterity damage, and 1 point of Constitution damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet. Once per round as a free action on its turn, the target can attempt a new Fortitude saving throw to resist the spell for 1 round.

If the caster scores a critical hit with this spell is the damage doubled for only the initial hit or for every round thereafter as well?

My apologies if this has already been answered or is a part of the rules that I am unaware of but I cannot for the life of me figure this out.

If I cast a touch attack spell, such as Shocking Grasp, and decide to hold the charge do I threaten?

So to give a specific example:
I cast shocking grasp and decide to hold the charge then I move up to an enemy and end my turn. The enemy begins to cast a spell. Does the enemies casting allow me to make an AoO with a touch attack to discharge the held shocking grasp or do I not provoke with my held shocking grasp?

Just want to say thank you posters for giving me the villain for my next campaign arch.

Jakynth wrote:

Sounds to me like the OP just wanted everyone to agree with how right he THOUGHT he was. Personally I like the archetype. However, the secret is out Secret Wizard, not everyone has the same thoughts as you when it comes to class mechanics.

I accept and celebrate a diversity of opinions.

Doesn't mean you aren't all wrong and I'm the only one who is right.

The word egotistical comes to mind.

Sounds to me like the OP just wanted everyone to agree with how right he THOUGHT he was. Personally I like the archetype. However, the secret is out Secret Wizard, not everyone has the same thoughts as you when it comes to class mechanics.

The rules with movement and the 5' step applies because if you 5' step and then move then you didn't really 5' step you just had continued movement. Other than that you can move equivalent actions and still 5' step in a round.

Rules from the SRD
You can move 5 feet in any round when you don't perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 5-foot step never provokes an attack of opportunity. You can't take more than one 5-foot step in a round, and you can't take a 5-foot step in the same round that you move any distance.

You can take a 5-foot step before, during, or after your other actions in the round.

You can only take a 5-foot-step if your movement isn't hampered by difficult terrain or darkness. Any creature with a speed of 5 feet or less can't take a 5-foot step, since moving even 5 feet requires a move action for such a slow creature.

You may not take a 5-foot step using a form of movement for which you do not have a listed speed.

Notice how it says in the first paragraph "Movement" and not move action, thats because there is a difference. Your DM was mistaken when it comes to the 5' step + move equivalent action ruling

If your not the DM then why do you need any of this information?? The DM should be the one deciding

1. Ideas for the Story
2. All the Loot
3. Any and all NPC's
4. All of the Above and everything else that isn't directly what your character is doing.

Ask a question that you as the player need help with and I'll be more than happy to try and help.

'Class tier' would require class to be a concept in the world, and I hate that idea. Just because my warrior gets angry and starts trying to eat the boar before it's been killed doesn't mean she's barbaric, does it?

Well that act is definitely barbaric but that doesn't make her a barbarian per say.

I really like this idea and I love the OP's list minus the Druid which i find to be a horrible class for players, Not mechanically but rp wise. May use this idea myself in the future.

OP, what is your list of races? Will you cherry pick the races to best suit the classes or for the flavor of your world?

Ditto to what Manwich said

There doesn't seem to be a question of any sort

According to my understanding of the pathfinder rules, with 3 rounds of detect magic and a successful knowledge check you would be able to find out that Lazy Joe is under the effects of a transmutation spell that increases his physical strength. It would be up to the players after that to play a guessing game as to what spell is actually in place.

"Ironically enough, a Spellcraft check would only tell you what the spell is, and not what it does."

A spellcraft check is only applicable in certain situations, such as when the spell is being cast. Since it has already been cast spellcraft would do nothing here per RAW.

The flavor of the Knight of Ozem class makes me think that the Inquisitor would be a good fit. Make Iomedae your patron diety to get longsword proficiency and then take heavy armor prof as a feat. Gets you some good skills and going 5 levels gets you bane which is really strong.

Flavor seems to fit well.

Rerednaw wrote:

Jakynth wrote:

Seems to me that this could fall into the same problems as psionics where characters tend to save their abilities and then go super nova and obliterate 1 enemy very hard, like the BBEG of the adventure or session. Idk maybe up the damage a little but put a cap on the number of points spent?

Thank you for pointing out another reason for my post. The Kineticist class has those elements factored in. Now given the rather emotional and charged remarks this may not sit well with everyone. I suggested that it be looked at simce that class establishes a baseline. If one wants to lower or exceed it via house rules that's up to them.

Did not think I had to break it down that far, but guess I was wrong and sorry for that. Hope this helps!

I don't know if you were addressing this at me, but there was no emotion [nor intended charge] in my response to you, I was simply curious if you had read the OP [some people reply to the title, others skim rather than read.]

The OP clearly states this ability is using the monk's extremely limited Ki Pool as its power source.

I was replying to this specifically

"since he will have a major excess of Ki"

Seems to me that this could fall into the same problems as psionics where characters tend to save their abilities and then go super nova and obliterate 1 enemy very hard, like the BBEG of the adventure or session. Idk maybe up the damage a little but put a cap on the number of points spent?

I like it. Run it.

Auspicious Mark (Su): The barbarian has been marked by the spirits, as indicated by an impressive tattoo, scar, or birthmark she possesses. As a swift action, she can call upon the spirits' favor to increase any d20 roll she just made by rolling 1d6 and adding it to the result. This bonus increases by 1 for every 4 levels she has. She can call on the auspicious mark after seeing the result of the d20 roll. This ability can be used only once per day.

So every at level 4 would the bonus be 1d6+1 or 2d6?

Jakynth wrote:

Onyxlion wrote:

Jakynth wrote:

After looking over this new modified summoner I'm so disappointed. The problems that my group faced over and over again with the class weren't fixed to the extent that they should have been. They took a big step in the right direction but not a big enough of one.

Looks like the Unchained summoner will have to join the previous summoner on my banned list for my upcoming campaign :(

What problem are you having? Why do you not have the same problems with other "pet" classes? Do you play low magic, low level, or low point buy?

Crazy high AC was a problem and based on what I see it still will be. The evolution points got dropped down alot but that just made it so the player takes just what they need instead of everything they want.

I may be wrong but just after doing some simple math on the class it still seems like it'll be a problem. I'd rather be safe than sorry for MY home campaign.

If anyone can shed some light on to the class a bit more, maybe someone who has playtested it at multiple levels such as 1,5,10?

From someone who plays higher power games, all I can say is if given the option between a summoner and druid I'd nearly always pick the druid every time. Druid can do everything the summoner can do better, all at the same time, fight better himself, don't have to share magic item slots, and all while having better casting.

As for the "crazy high AC" what are we talking here? The eidolon can't wear armor so only progression, spells, and evolution points. I'll take a biped base level 5 and see what I can come up with: +2 dex, +2 natural armor, +4 progression, +2 evolution point x 1, +4 mage armor, added all together this gives us 24. 24 is a pretty good AC for 5th level now it could be 1 point higher if you put 2 eps into ability dex but that's only 1 point left for other things which isn't much but the 24 is without any gold burned so I say it's pretty good so far.

Now lets look at a tanky animal...

Who cares about actual armor. With the combination of Mage Armor, Shield and Barkskin which the Eidolon can benefit from all and a naturally progressing Nat armor and evolution points to invest in it. It became a serious problem for the dm and party when the Eidolon had an AC of 40 at level 10 with a single standard action from the party. Also that turtle is only going to get 1 attack per turn while the old eidolon could crank out like 5/6 at that level with insane mobility and reach. It quickly outclassed literally every other character at the table making them completely useless.

Thats what I don't want in my campaign and I'm not convinced they have fixed that with the Unchained Summoner.

Jakynth wrote:

After looking over this new modified summoner I'm so disappointed. The problems that my group faced over and over again with the class weren't fixed to the extent that they should have been. They took a big step in the right direction but not a big enough of one.

Looks like the Unchained summoner will have to join the previous summoner on my banned list for my upcoming campaign :(

What problem are you having? Why do you not have the same problems with other "pet" classes? Do you play low magic, low level, or low point buy?

Crazy high AC was a problem and based on what I see it still will be. The evolution points got dropped down alot but that just made it so the player takes just what they need instead of everything they want.

I may be wrong but just after doing some simple math on the class it still seems like it'll be a problem. I'd rather be safe than sorry for MY home campaign.

If anyone can shed some light on to the class a bit more, maybe someone who has playtested it at multiple levels such as 1,5,10?

After looking over this new modified summoner I'm so disappointed. The problems that my group faced over and over again with the class weren't fixed to the extent that they should have been. They took a big step in the right direction but not a big enough of one.

Looks like the Unchained summoner will have to join the previous summoner on my banned list for my upcoming campaign :(

GMPC or NPC it all seems the same to me. In a solo session I'm currently running I have control over literally everything besides my only player's character. He has had many party members that have come along on his adventures and he has helped them with a few of theirs.

I think finding the nice niche is that you really need to be an experienced DM. A true DM will have just as much fun running a campaign as his players are having in his.

Either way just make sure that if your running multiple "GMPC's" or a single one that the game is about the players and that you shouldn't be hogging the spotlight from them. If a GMPC is important because of a well devised plot hook then so be it but just find that line and don't cross it.

I also do my best to try and make the following NPC's something i don't have to plan things for. Like i never make a wizard so that way i don't have to worry about meta-gaming his spell choices.

If an Attack of Opportunity is not an Attack Roll...then what is it?

Ask your DM that question and ask him what he says and when he spews out that load of bs ask him to back it up with some form of text based rule.

If he still sticks to his guns then just let him know that if you can't power attack on AoO's then the baddies and npc's shouldn't be able to either.

Thankyou kestral287 and Bronnwynn

Opportune Parry and Riposte (Ex) : At 1st level, when an opponent makes a melee attack against the swashbuckler, she can spend 1 panache point and expend a use of an attack of opportunity to attempt to parry that attack. The swashbuckler makes an attack roll as if she were making an attack of opportunity; for each size category the attacking creature is larger than the swashbuckler, the swashbuckler takes a –2 penalty on this roll. If her result is greater than the attacking creature's result, the creature's attack automatically misses. The swashbuckler must declare the use of this ability after the creature's attack is announced, but before its attack roll is made. Upon performing a successful parry and if she has at least 1 panache point, the swashbuckler can as an immediate action make an attack against the creature whose attack she parried, provided that creature is within her reach.

Specifically when it states that the swashbuckler makes an attack roll as if she were making an attack of opportunity

Does that mean that any bonuses that would apply to an AoO would apply to this specific attack such as the trait Fencer that gives a +1 bonus on AoO's with bladed weapons?

Under the playable Orc race does it say you must be evil aligned?

The answer is no, which means they can be neutral or good characters and so killing the orc toddlers is evil, plain and simple.

And frankly what is the intelligence score of a toddler orc anyways?

Are they even conscience of what their beliefs or actions are to determine an alignment of their own. I would put them at a neutral alignment like an animal. They aren't inherently evil.

Things that I've found mostly GMing over twenty years in no particular order:

1. Soundtracks - music can be a great tool not only for combat but to help build scenes (e.g. royal feast, holy temple etc.)

2. Handouts/props - rather than describe a map they find or some document from the ambassador provide it to the group.

2. I certainly use voices and posture, gesture, using/miming small props (e.g. a cigar chomping half orc merc) quite a bit for NPCs of note. My groups seem to enjoy it but I am also mindful of not going that route for every single NPC and still mostly focusing on what the players want out of the interaction rather than just me taking up all the time being a bit silly.

3. Narrative, description - avoid detailing combats as you take 30 hp or deal 10 damage. Embellish with some narrative touches (e.g. you deliver a reeling blow to the ogre, the thief's scimiatar cuts deeply into your flank for 10 hp)

4. Depends on your group but any campaign really depends on motivating the PCs and giving them something to care about (e.g. their hometown, building a pirate fleet). If the players are just grinding their way through a dungeon with no real reason to save for gaining XP any drama is likely to fall flat because there are no stakes.

I'm sure there's others but have to get going.

One BIG thumbs up from this guy. This is all great stuff and I completely agree with soundtracks.

My DM has used some great soundtracks in our last 2 campaigns and it has really brought things to life.

One big suggestion is that if you have a recurring villain give him/her their own song that is special to them and them alone.

I've looked at the Android race from the Inner Sea Bestiary multiple times now on multiple sources and they all say that its race points are 16...

However, it might just be me but by my calculations its only like 9?

Anybody out there familiar with the race and the race point guide mind showing me how Paizo is getting 16 race points.

Thank you.

Jakynth wrote:

You can take the trait Student of Philosophy and use your int instead of cha for diplomacy and bluff.

Or having a decent cha is good for making a hex channeling witch, which imo is a pretty sweet archtype.

I Think it looks like crap. But i May be missing somthing.

Well as a witch your really only taking extra hex as a feat anyways. So you cut down on your number of hex's, which there are only a few must haves anyways, and in return get to channel the same as a cleric just 1 level behind. BUT you can channel from your familiar, so you get yourself a faerie dragon and now your have a flying intelligent channel point and with the healing patron you can finally have a working mystic thuerge that can do more.

You can take the trait Student of Philosophy and use your int instead of cha for diplomacy and bluff.

Or having a decent cha is good for making a hex channeling witch, which imo is a pretty sweet archtype.

HA! Just let them continue on their way and when like 5 sessions have gone by and they've done nothing and are scratching their heads wondering why they are still level 1's you can toss a fishing hook on the table and tell them you didn't realize how blatantly you were gonna have to show them the hook so that they would take it.

Had a buddy of mine do that ALOT back in the day and it annoyed the table to no end. We had enough and just called him out on it and it never happened again. He didn't throw a fit and leave the group or anything cray like that. I mean you wouldn't be playing d&d with the guy if he wasn't a solid dude in the first play...so if he's a solid dude then it shouldn't be a problem to let him know that its a problem.

It is simply a Knowledge check. Hopefully the players will at least acquire the basic knowledge of the creature and then based on player knowledge should have the common sense to know that walking into a fight with a creature that is a CR 15 when they are a group of level 6's would mean certain death. No need for all of the fancy shaken effects

Mindchemist Vivisectionist Alchemist with a one level dip in Pathfinder Delver at 6th.

Can disable magic traps without the trait.
Can take 10s on Stealth and Disable Device.
Can make all knowledge skills untrained and doubles his Int bonus to them.
Gets Sneak Attack full progression.
Tons of skill points with 6+int per level and Int being one of your main stats.
Access to Invisibility, Alter Self, Disguise Self, and many more handy sneaky magics

I'd go so far as to say this is THE sneaky, skillful, Rogue-like class in Pathfinder right now. And most likely most effective.

You can't take these two archetypes together. Really wish you could but you can't. They both get rid of Mutagen.

If your players are truly in sync with their characters with total game immersion and they no longer view the gm as someone sitting at the other end of the table true hatred can be achieved for a villain. Its all about eliciting an emotional response from the players, I know this can be done because I've been in the players seat feeling that way. My DM on 2 occasions over the years with 2 of his villains have truly made me despise them. Something about them made me want to show them no mercy and my jaw would tighten every time they were brought up in conversation. I'm not sure what he did to get me to react that way but that is what you want from the players. That raw reaction of just pure despise.

Anzyr wrote:

...

So then Anzyr, enuf hypotheticals. Many of us, such as RJGrady and myself have said we don;t have "rocket tag in our games. The Devs don't have rocket tag in their games.

Do you? I asked you this yesterday and you didn't reply: And, few people have said they play a game where 'rocket tag" is normal. In fact no one here has chimed in to say their actual game is a "rocket tag' game. Are you talking IRL or theorycraft?

Is YOUR game all Rocket tag? What sort of game do you play?
To everyone here that claims that rocket tag is "inevitable" do you actually play that way? Do you even play Pathfinder?
If so then do you enjoy playing that way?

Do you play with any of the three factors I listedRocket tag is caused by three issues:
1. Allowing PC's to hyper-optimize. High point buy, allowing magic items, feats, spells, etc from non-core sources, dumping, etc.

2. Running those hyper-optimized PC's in a standard AP and not making adjustments to the encounters. If the players get a 25 pt build, why are the monsters still using Elite? Why not change around their feats, spells etc to match those the PC's have access to?

3. The DM not using good tactics for the bad guys.

But let me AGAIN make this clear- if you are having fun, then allowing Rocket Tag is NOT "Badwrongfun". If it's fun, then it's not wrong. Revel in your characters hyper-optimized powerfulness.

But those of you that claim rocket tag is Borg-like in it's inevitability, then do YOU play that way?

Or are we just talking hypotheticals?

In my pathfinder game that lasted for a year and a half that put our party to level 15's it was almost impossible without the dm specifically avoiding it to not have rocket tag. That was happening within the last few levels of the campaign that sadly didn't finish. Optimization of the players wasn't the issue, we all had decent builds, not overpowered ones just decent and when the dm put us up against his powerfully built enemies the baddies and us dropped very quickly.

Lv. 1 Bard, 2 Mindchemist, 1 Lore Oracle
Elf
Str-7
Dex-9
Con-10
Int-20
Wis-7
Cha-16

Bard gives you all the knowledges, Mindchemist adds your int mod twice, and lore oracle gives you some really nifty revelations

4 ranks +3 from the class skill bonus gets you 7

7+ the 10 from the int gets you 17

breadth of experience(feat) gets you +19 to all your knowledges

the revelation Focused Trance gets you a +39 3 times a day and +19 the rest

I think as the DM you are the judge of time and fate in your world. The characters are in the palm of your hands and sometimes you take it easy on them and other times you try to apply pressure and they surprise you. Just once in awhile you have to take the kiddy gloves off see what they can do. Sink or swim no pulled punches.

I would have a sit down conversation with the DM about the situation and be honest. If you had won the duel would you have left your adventuring party to go be a student at the tower? Probably not.

In situations like that when you know the DM doesn't want you to do something for fear that it is going to derail the campaign just ask for a sidebar with him and explain your case telling him that you have no intentions of actually throwing the campaign for a loop.

That way you don't put anymore strain on the DM than necessary, and make sure that if the wizards in his game use spells then you should be able to get access to them as well.

Oh and punch that other wizard you dueled with...spitting isn't nice.

^

Scenario. Human rogue stabs a sleeping 10 year old kid and kills him.

Most would scream evil til they were blue in the face. But what if the rogue HONESTLY believed this 10 year old was a vessel for an ancient evil force?

"who would believe that? Still evil! many of you would say. And if he WAS..... now what? Belief functions to guide the alignment shifts more then the actions alone. Only a truly horrifying EVIL BEYOND ALL DOUBT action cannot be somewhat explained away.

The path to hell was paved with good intentions. Even if he believes that the child is a vessel then its still an alignment shift. The DM hands out the alignment shifts and the DM knows if the child was evil or not.

We recently had this problem in our own group. One of the players was a synthesist summoner and outshined the rest of the group pretty heavily. Once it was apparent that the session would go into a downward spiral since the rest of the players wouldn't be having any fun at all soon enough because the S.S. would be destroying everything, the DM kindly asked that the player make something else so the session wouldn't end. The player agreed after hearing the DM's points and changed his class to something else.

If that isn't an option i suggest touch attacks, like vampiric touch and find someway to get a con damaging poison to stick since its double effective against the S.S.

Hire a bunch of equal level hirelings then its all action economy and there is no way that 1 character of equal level can kill 8. Then whenever he opens his mouth just tell him to try it. Or better yet roll up a new character thats a paladin since this other guy seems evil and then you can be the one who puts him in his place all day every day and he won't be able to do s&@$.

Losing a feat seems a bit harsh. Why don't you just ask him to get rid of some tiefling trait like fiendish resistance or the SLA? A last ditch effort might be to ask him if you could take -2 penalty to another ability score. Wisdom probably fits a tiefling best.

With the way he's looking to run the session making changes to the race isn't a real option. Although I don't think the race needs to be debuffed in any way to be on par with the core races such as the dwarf.

Thankyou all for the many responses, more will always be appreciated.

Jakynth

Jakynth wrote:

minoritarian wrote:

He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.

Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.

dwarves may be written as 4 points cheaper than aasimaar, but they are a lot more powerful. and actually, Aasimaar aren't much stronger than tieflings, the whole gain an aasimaar gains over a tiefling is the lack of penalty to a potential dump stat. most people don't care about the dump stat, in exchange, tieflings have a more commonly used set of resistances and a more generally useful spell like ability. thing is, it's still a weak SLA either way.

The way Paizo reworked Darkness for pathfinder I wouldn't even use it as a 0 level spell.

He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.

Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.

Well, comparing race points, a Tiefling is at a 13, compared to a human's 9, but also a dwarf's 11, as well as the 10 held by most other races. So it is not that much of a problem.

My DM and I both agree that the ARG can't be taken seriously as the point build system for races are extremely flawed.

But I do agree that the Aasimar is stronger than the Tiefling.

If he's fine with you playing a Witch then a Tieflings advantages are negligible compared to the power that class brings with it, if he's looked over Witch and is happy to allow it then there really isn't a shred of a reason to require an extra feat for a Tiefling... though telling him that maaaaaay not actually help your case ;)

You think the Witch is powerful class? I think its strong, but no stronger than the Wizard.

Thankyou soooooo much everyone for all your input. I think my DM is just a bit to Lawful Neutral to change what his past experience with the race has shown him. As far as all of the variant Tieflings I can understand that those may be a bit stronger considering the SLA's are better than darkness yet I will actually be playing the standard tiefling just with beguiling liar and prehensile tail options.

Were not powergamers but optimization is usually in our nature however with this character I've actually not gone with a fully optimized character in favor of a little more fluff. However, the feat loss at first level would really hurt not just me but the rest of the group since the class lends more towards damage mitigation and I'd really love to pick up Extra Hex.

I also would hate to do something to intentionally piss him off as he is a very good friend of mine, just never had him as a DM before.

And as far as choosing the Faerun option of the lesser Tiefling which loses the outsider(native) type I think is just absurd. That would be like playing an elf without pointed ears or a dwarf without a beard to me, without the outsider(native) it just isn't really planetouched to me...just thats what makes it unique.

The DM is still unsure of how he wants to have it go he's just leaning very heavily towards this. As of right now I'm the person he's having help him make many of the decisions he has to make about how he's going to manage certain parts of the campaign so its not exactly a his way or the highway situation yet and he his a reasonable level-headed individual so if presented with a solid case hopefully with some backing by people on here then I'm hoping to sway his final decision.

Dear members of the Paizo universe I call upon thee

My group and I will be starting a new campaign in the very near future and our most veteran member will be DM'ing the campaign. As most of his d&d experience as well as most of the modules he'll be running are 3rd and 3.5 material he has opted to using the ECL system instead of any exp debt or other potential choices.

This has become a problem for myself as I was getting excited to crack open a character concept I've had for over a good year now, a tiefling witch. The only problem with this is that my DM seems to be adamant that the Tiefling and Aasimar races although don't warrant a +1 ECL do in his view so far warrant spending your 1st level feat so that they are "on par" with other less powerful races.

I've tried to defend them being on par with the core races for several reasons such as the core races from 3.5 all got an ability stat boost in pathfinder while the planetouched have either stayed the same or actually lost some power such as the tieflings darkness SLA being debuffed.

I'm not looking to start any sort of flame war here just looking for your opinions on the matter.

So do you believe that the race would warrant such a cost or not and please give your reasons why if you believe the feat cost is warranted?

Thankyou All.

Jakynth

Alright one more thing. I've found out what they are and where they come from and who uses them but does anyone have any statistics for these minor artifacts??