James Pepe's page

My PCs are about to enjoy a carnival put on by the folks at their HQ (they are agents of a larger organization) but they are also pretty high level so I want the carnival prizes to be pretty good stuff. I had in mind stuff ranging anywhere from like 500g to 5000g, but I don't really want them to be just +X weapons. So I was thinking things like:

Pearl of power
Pathfinder pouch
Bag of holding
Figurines of wonderous power

So, things like that. What might be some other fun stuff for super high end carnival game prizes?

Nevermind, answered my own question I think. From the description of a Golem Manual, "Each manual also holds the prerequisite spells needed for a specific golem (although these spells can only be used to create a golem and cannot be copied)"

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/book-golem-manual/

I've been reading about bad touch clerics recently and there seems to be two ways to deal with AOOs. First, cast the spell out of range, then walk in and deliver the spell and then walk out of range before casting the next one. Second, tank them. Clerics have a lot of defensive buffs they can cast on themselves, you can get a high AC with the right kind of build, and there is even a domain that gives you the mirror image spell. So its possible for them to make themselves hard to hit.

Ok so you have several choices for weapon, and the weapon is the most important part here I think.

Sivanah does have the balded scarf, which is cool and all, but for a bad touch cleric I'd enjoy something with a nice reach weapon with lots of base damage and good domains(Ideally chaos/madness domain which i'll use as a reference here), as well as the possibility of negative channel.

If you want to be a dex fighter, go with shelyn and her bladed brush feat but then channel smite doest work as well.

I'd go with the following stat array assuming a non dex build:

Assuming 20 point buy:

str: 14, Dex 12 Con 12 Int 7 Wis 18 cha 16 (after racial mod)

I'll go with ghorum here since he ticks off all my boxes and has a vital strike fighting style.

Weapon: TBD (Any weapon with high base damage that is your divine weapon should work, for here we'll say greatsword)
Feats:
1: Chaneling Smite
3: Guided Hand
5: Quick Channel
7: Selective Channel
9: Vital Strike.

You get a +1 Channeling Spell Storing weapon, then every round you gp:

Attack: Vital Striked hit (4d6+STR+enhancement+buffs)using wis to hit, swift action channeled smite to add 5d6(7d6 with phylactery of negative channeling) *0,50 damage to the hit, and then move action negative channel.

Total cost: 3 channel uses, 2 domain power uses.

Effects:
x2 base weapon damage
Spellstoring: bestow curse
Channeling: Chaos domain power (roll 2 times keep worse)
Channeling smite: (with variant channeling madness) save or be confused
Variant quick channel: AOE 5(7)d6 damage, save for half, save not to be confused (if the dm argues the channeling smite doesnt have the roll twice and keep worse clause, this one clearly does).

Alternatively, there's a variant channeling that causes daze, it's rulership, see if your DM allows it.

But this feels like a solid debuff bad touch build.

Also this gives you the whole "titanic blow that does aow damage" feel that seems really awesome.

I made a few tweaks to this. This is using a 25 point buy

10
12
13
10
18 (racial bonus)
16

Feats:
Improved Initiative
Weapon Focus: Heavy Flail
Channeling Smite
Guided Hand
Quick Channel
Selective Channel
Vital Strike

Traits: Initiative, Fort, and Ref traits.
Drawback: Probably Umbral Unmasking cause its awesome.

The gear you described plus some mithral full plate, boots of striding and springing, negative channel phylactery.

Took the level in Fighter to get the heavy armor prof and the extra feat. Put some in dex and took imp initiative since ill be debuffing and want to get that started ASAP.

What domain is Rulership associated with? I cant seem to find any information about it other than its variant abilities

I'm looking for a comprehensive bad touch cleric guide. I've looked in all the usual places but can't seem to find anything. I know the basic idea behind the build, but I'm looking for something well thought out.

wow this is awesome. thanks for taking the time to put this all together

Important question: lich or baelnorn? These are similar, but different.

Also, it may be possible to alter the lich ritual to the other.

Also, in the course thereof, it would require reversing the polarity hah! It actually means that this time! of this process.

Another possibility is to use this to alter the nature of the ritual to maybe become a deathless councilor.

If you're looking for trickier ways of doing something with it: maybe you can replicate the process (in theory, not practice), but alter it in some key way to either make liches that follow it much weaker to the powers of light or even just auto-atone them into defacto servants of Horus (complete with alignment change).

Full disclosure, I mostly know Horus from Forgotten Realms, so he may well be different here. :)

I dont know what a baelnorn is. Are they like...non-undead versions of liches? Are there non-undead versions of liches? I'm not sure what the inverse of a lich would be, like an avatar maybe? Or demigod?

Lich doesn't require Arcane magic, divine can certainly do it as well.

That being said, Horus isn't particularly a lich type deity so I wouldn't expect your character to leap to the conclusion that your God wants you to become a lich, and since I assume you all have at least paladin-compatible alignments no one would want to do whatever nasty things are in that particular lich ritual in any event, not to mention that a ritual for one person might well not work for another.

My guess would be the real use of this information is that it is related to a lich that is still around. Perhaps the ritual contains keys to some weakness he has, or at lest his identity and possible whereabouts. Certainly you should be able to know what his phylactery looks like, which can be a big help if you have to confront him. Of course, level 5 is a long way from being able to deal with even a 'weak' lich, so direct uses of this information are not likely to come up soon.

You could though use the information you have to find out more. Who was the person that used that ritual, are their any indications they are still around, and what, if any, activities are they engaging in (probably via proxies.)

And of course if the lich is around and becomes aware of you investigating him, that is likely to lead to all sorts of interesting things.

I agree that she wouldn't jump to the conclusion that her god is now asking her to become a lich, but she would think that the information has been given to her for some reason or use and she needs to figure that out. Are divine liches different from arcane liches...are they called something else or are they basically the same thing. I know divine casters can be necromancers but I guess I always associated Liches with wizards\arcane casters.

I'm looking for some fun ideas to do with some information we came across in a recent game I'm playing in. A friend and I are playing in a game together and he is playing a character with a level in samurai and he has taken my character as his master. I am playing a true neutral Warpriest of Horus. We are 5th lvl. The other two party members are a bard and a paladin. In the course of the game he triggered a haunt that gave him full and complete knowledge of how to become a Lich. He, being a non-arcane character basically has no interest in the information at all. My character doesn't have any immediate use for the information either. However she sees him as a gift to her from Horus and therefore thinks this information was given to him providentially and must, therefore, have some use. I'm trying to come up with some creative and fun ways that the characters might make use of this incredibly powerful information. Thoughts?

There would be no potential for any actual combat, unless they decide to just start randomly murdering good people who show no hostility towards them. However, everyone they encounter would seem to be expecting people to arrive who would start some kind of unknown conflict, these people would be seen miles away on the horizon, and then the encounter would end and they would be removed from the area.

All this discussion is great and I really appreciate people taking the time to type up responses. I understand that the weave etc came from the FR setting, but like I said, it was the only source of anything coming close to satisfying answers about the nature of magic. Let me simplify the question then,

"Why can't wizards heal people via. arcane magic?"

A number of people mention that wizards are more concerned with other things, but that's not really an answer. I can play a wizard that cares about people and might want to heal them. In fact, if I was a wizard who was concerned with gaining knowledge about the nature of the universe and I see someone, like a bard, making use of the same "power" that I am, and doing something with it that I can't do, I would want to know why. I would love to know if there is a lore driven answer. If there simply isn't, that's fine as well.

I'm in a game right now with a number of people who are playing characters that are really good at not being seen, especially a wizard who uses invisibility in addition to his ridiculously high stealth score. I, however, am playing a LG pally. Now, as a player I know this wizard has been going through my kit and taking stuff out of it for his own use. My character, however, is only beginning to have her suspicions. That being said, I'm looking for advice as to how to keep his grubby mitts off my stuff! I am pretty sure he is able to pick locks, hes very good at sneaking around and keeping quiet, and I am pretty sure he makes use of the knock spell. Currently I am keeping all my gear in a handy haversack and we have been making use of a magically extended rope trick to sleep in and recoup. So, any advice on how to keep him out of my bags would be greatly appreciated.