Jarrahkin's page

+28/+23/+18 +4 kukri (2d6+35/15-20/x2) stagger + sicken on crit

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I'd love to see how you got +35 damage at level 15...any clues?

My initial thought was no, but on reflection I can't see why not. The Swashbuckler is a Fighter hybrid, so the source logic is Fighter derived. I certainly can't see it as a gamebreaker.

Personally, I am of the school of thought that these armors are already made from a 'special material' and thus can not be made out of Mithril or Dragonhide...

My theory is that whatever the "Celestial" enchantment is, it completely overrides any material properties the armour has...Magic trumps Materials in this case. Saves a lot of hassles in the argument (like, why *wouldn't* you make it out of Mithral???).

For a Fighter, Effortless Dual Wielding works (Advanced Weapon Training).

For Spellstoring:

"Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires."

To me that implies that the damage is a trigger, and therefore separate...they're not simultaneous, there's a fractional delay.

The limitations on Dex-for-damage are significant and have a solid Feat tax, and going down that path is far from being a no-brainer.

Not going to argue the point though, everyone has different views on things. For me, shields work just fine as they are and don't need fixing.

Not a fan of using Str to get an AC boost.

Fighters currently have a choice between Str for damage or Dex for AC...this would make Str a no-brainer, giving them benefits for both for high Str.

Is it possible to add a weapon to a Fighter Weapon Group? I recall mention of a Feat that allowed it, but can't find it.

If players only get half price for selling magic items (etc), due the way the market works, why can't they buy things for half price? There's usually no logic behind it, other than as a player character tax to keep their finances under control in relation to the NPCs around them.

To me, gems and jewelry are full price for resale...it's convenient if nothing else, otherwise they'd need a wagon train to cart around their loot at higher levels. It's also historically more accurate, and why gems were valued by the wealthy as convenient international currency.

Art is often rationally specific...it might not be worth much in the area it's made, but worth a fortune in another country. To save the hassle of tracking where it's made, or who by, etc, I just pitch it a flat 90%, with some variance for who they're selling it to, specified rarity and so on.

Without knowing the campaign setting you're using, can't give more than general suggestions.

If the players have a Fixer/Handler/Patron, then set up an opposing one...every mission they do for their Handler is a battle against his opposite number. Maybe those plant monsters were part of a scheme to destroy a forest and slow down expansion into the area, or the Shadows were there to terrorise the locals into hiring some of his people as guards.

Leave clues on each of these seemingly random missions...maybe any gold coins they find are foreign coins, or freshly minted with higher or lower gold content, or overstamped with an odd symbol (etc).

Hopefully they'll ask about the clues and eventually learn about the bigger war being fought between the two Handlers...that's when they can go from being pieces to being minor players.

Lots of things already said, so I'll just pick one:

One of the three characters fell into a deep chasm immediately after being affected and is dead and unrecoverable by the party.

Congratulations Wisher, you're now the proud owner of 6,500 feet of hemp rope...hope your Climbing skill is up to the task.

There might be some NPCs in town who might not like the idea of the players irritating the beast and putting the other 85% at risk. A few words from the local authorities might be enough to convince them it's a bad idea for several reasons.

Because for sure they don't lose hit points.

Of course they do, but hit points are the easiest resource to replenish, and one of the cheapest, and with a solic AC not as easy to take from a fighter as most other classes.

Plus they have plenty to lose (by comparison) and if they're losing them, so is everybody else.

True fighter's still suffer from, "I don't have spells" or better phrased "I don't have a toolbox that lets me reshape the battle field and non-combat scenarios in ways that transcends the general mechanics"

On the other hand, fighters don't spend much in the way of resources doing what they do, so they're just as tough at the end of the day as when they started.

If your sessions have one or two battles between characters resting and getting their spells back, casters can dominate by throwing all their spells as fast as they can. If you play long dungeon crawls, with many battles between naps, the casters get weaker and weaker with each fight, while the fighter just powers on.

You trying to reason with them is about as pointless as the party trying to reason with the bad guy.

If you're convinced that the bad guy needs killing, initiate combat yourself...once you open fire, everyone is committed and they'll be forced to back your play.

You'll likely have arguments about it afterwards, but as long as it's kept in character it should be manageable. Much better than having the TPK blame argument (which can't be done in character).

Thanks for the heads-up on Celestial Armour, that's probably the best path.

He's a twin cutlass wielder with a buckler and staying pure fighter, so dipping elsewhere or using a light shield aren't really options...I was only looking for ways to maximise my dex bonus, and Celestial Armour seems the way to go.

Thanks for the replies :)

Edit: follow-on question...can specific/special forms of armour, like Celestial Armour be up-enchanted? It's +3 off the shelf, can I further enchant it to +4 or +5?

I have a dex-based TWF Fighter (Corsair archetype) and I'm looking for ways to max my dex bonus to AC. He's currently in a Breastplate, which he'll be sticking with...Mithral adds a few points for max dex bonus, plus he has the Swift Iron Style feat.

Any other ways I can add to his max dex bonus?

A similar item, by way of comparison, is a Scabbard of Keen Edges, which costs 16,000 GP:

Up to three times per day on command, the scabbard casts Keen Edge on any blade placed within it.

Reshape the scabbard to a quiver and switch out 'Keen Edge' for 'Flame Arrow' (both 3rd level Wizard spells) and you have an item that might suit your needs.

If nothing else, that gives you a start point to build from or to negotiate with your DM.

Much thanks!

I didn't realise there was an Adv Wpn Trg feat. I've seen the one for Adv Armour Trg...where do I find the AWT one (so I can point my DM at it)?

There's a whole chain of fuzzy logic there. Sure, it's a javelin until it's thrown, but once it is, it stops being a javelin and becomes something else, and the new rules or conditions apply.

Technically a scroll or wand could be used as an improvised weapon. The same logic could be used to argue any combat feats that apply to improvised weapons should also be used to spells cast from a scroll or wand, which makes no sense at all.

For a bit of flavour, a human Dex-based Corsair. Pump the AC (can easily get AC20 at level 1), Fighter HPs and BAB, and you get Cleave as a free 2nd level feat for an extra attack (situational of course).

Sorry, realised that after I posted and went looking for it, but the site glitched becore I could edit/amend.

The ability to deliver touch spells through Hand of the Apprentice sounds cool, but you're turning a touch attack into a ranged attack, which lowers its accuracy substantially in most cases.

You can use Hand of the Apprentice to deliver Touch attacks? I don't get that from reading the description.

I think Treat Deadly Wounds is about right as it is. It's not meant to be a substitute for magical Healing, which is already awesome, and really is just the mundane skill used by commoners when they can't afford a Cleric.

I'd like to see Treat Disease and Treat Poison tweaked though. Rather than a +4 competence bonus to the next save, I'd rather see a stackable +2 bonus (multiple healers being better than one), much like Aid Other. To offset everyone in the party making an attempt, trained or not, anyone failing the Heal check gives a -1 penalty to their save.

Adding to that, instead of a bonus to their next save, a successful Heal check could give an extra save now, rather than a bonus later.

If those aspects of Heal make it too powerful, Treat Deadly Wounds, Treat Poison and and Treat Disease could be available only to those trained in it...as it is, the average peasant, generally untrained in Heal, has a reasonable chance of helping someone with a deadly disease, which I don't think should be the case.

A straight up Wizard, Universalist. Has some cool abilities, no real weaknesses and lets you adapt your direction as you level up.

In terms of "advice", I'd say to look ahead at where you want to be in the future...there's a stack of cool magic feats and metamagic feats that you need to build towards, and not planning ahead can cost you.

Also:
- generally, you will start weak but get powerful quickly, if you can survive. You'll need to convince the rest of the party to protect you until then (no AC or HPs is a drag).

- make sure you're useful in combat, even when you run out of spells. A basic missile weapon capability helps, as does investing in items that keep you fighting effectively longer (Pearls of Wisdom, Scrolls etc).

- be sure you understand the DM's or adventure's playing style. If you only have 1-2 encounters a day, you can go nuts and use everything you have nice and early; if it's a dungeon crawl and you have 5-6 encounters between sleeps, you'll really need to manage your spells carefully. Make sure one of your Orisons is a damage one.

- you won't need money for better armour or weapons, so save it up for creating your own magic items and capitalise on the 50% discount for making vs buying.

Every wizard is different though, so hard to steer you towards a style might suit you. My current wizard is a Universalist, built around enchanting in his spare time but lots of direct damage during battle...nothing fancy, just lots and lots of dice of damage, every round until the bad guys stop. That might not be your thing and you might prefer more subtly and battlefield control than that, so it's worth looking at different options.

Nowhere in the requirements list for most special abilities does it state a caster level requirement. There's no "specifically" that applies to Bane at all, and I've given a list of those where it is specifically stated.

The passage you quoted above, from the Magic Weapon section, says nothing at all about crafting the item, it just refers to the overall CL of the weapon.

From the FAQ under Crafting Magic Items, as an extension:

Does creating a magic item require the creator to be of the same or higher caster level of the item itself? This doesn’t seem to square with the CLs listed for specific magic items; for instance, a Belt of Giant Strength +2 has CL 8th, but the only spell required in its creation, bull’s strength, has a minimum caster level of 3.

Am I missing anything here?

Answer: Though the listed Caster Level for a pearl of power is 17th, that caster level is not part of the Requirements listing for that item. Therefore, the only caster level requirement for a pearl of power is the character has to be able to cast spells of the desired level.

In any event, I doubt we'll convince each other of our respective interpretations, and if yours works for your group, so be it. I'm happy enough with mine and comfortable with it in terms of how the rules read to me as both a player and a DM.

Isn't that the entire point of this discussion, the CL of the creator?

Spell Storing, Dispelling Burst, Dispelling are the ones I'm aware of, there might be more.

That assumes the added ability has a caster level requirement, which very few of them do.

Caster level
While you add the effective enhancement bonus to the actual enhancement bonus to figure out the weapon's price, you don't do the same thing for the purpose of its caster level prerequisite.
A +1 enhancement bonus has a minimum caster level of 3.
A Bane weapon has a minimum caster level of 8.

So a +1 Bane weapon needs a caster level of 8, because that's the highest option.

I've always read that differently.

There's nothing in the requirements list for Bane that specifies CL8, that's just the equivalent CL of the item after it's made.

Compare that with Spell Storing, which has an item CL12 and specifies the caster must be level 12 in the requirements list...that last would be redundant if the item CL was also a requirement.

I've run riots before, in D&D 3rd Ed, and the mechanics are much the same as PF...it was a while ago, and the detailed notes are long gone, but I do recall the general mechanics of it all.

Basically, treat big units (the Mob, the Army, the Goverment etc) as single creatures with limited Stat blocks...you're going to be using the Mob as a plot/story device, so probably don't want to worry about combat, so can ignore anything combat related (AC, HPs,, etc). You'll need one for "The Town" too. I only worried about skills and saves really...for known quantities, like troops and the goverment, you set the levels based on what you know about them. The mob can be more random, based on what the players do.

Every hour, the bigger groups could try one or two things, depending on how big, how wide-spread or how well resourced they were:

Intimidate: for the Mob, this was based on the size of the Mob, which could be set by the PCs Diplomacy check...the bigger the roll, the higher the Intimidate "skill". Roll every hour or so against amother group, opposed by Will. A success by the Mob might keep troops cowering behind their walls, while a success by the Army will cause some of the mob to disperse, which lowers its overall stats.

Stealth: if the Mob decided to loot or burn something, this was Stealth opposed by Perception. The impact of this varied, but generally caused havoc, did damage and either raised or lowered the will of the opposition ...a good leader could use it to build outrage, weak leadership could lower their resolve to stand against the mob.

Diplomacy: the Mob could try to recruit more rioters, with a roll against the town's Will, while the Government could try to raise the town's will to make it resist better.

Etc, etc.

The idea wasn't to make it mechanically perfect but a general representation of what's going on...you decide what the government is going to do, the players decide what the Mob is going to try, then dice are rolled and you create a narrative based on the results.

Reading through an AP is basically cheating to me, and I'd not let a player play if they'd done that. You can probably go through it and recalibrate things to deal with him, but you shouldn't have to, and it wouldn't be fair on the others.

One way of dealing with the character would be to let it "Ascend" rather than killing it off. A holy, mythic, super-warrior like that should be serving his deity directly...run a mini quest, sponsored by his Church, and when it's all done make him a Saint and let him go off to join the Heavenly Host.

Of course, that would make him a NPC, but he can always design a new character (with more stringent supervision this time).

Playing with someone who's read the AP and is using that knowledge in game is like going to watch a new movie with someone who's already seen it and spoils it by telling you things just before they happen on-screen...you wouldn't put up with, and they'd stop being invited along. Same deal here really.

There are a few Magus archetypes that allow spells to function through thrown weapons...if you can convince your DM to allow Pokeballs as a thrown weapon, those mechanics might cover what you need.

Firstly, the DM is a donkey-puncher...he's effectively punishing you for an act of compassion, when it would have been perfectly fine to let the Agent bleed out. Wedging you between two such choices is poor form.

Killing isn't an inherently evil act, otherwise Paladins couldn't exist the way they do...they're fighters, which means killers, and the distinction between Good and Evil is more about the How and Why of killing, rather than the simple taking of life.

The Agent has made it clear that he'll commit an evil act on innocents if you let him go, so stopping him is a priority. If he was armed instead of being tied up and made the same threats, you'd have no problems at all in attacking him to stop him, so the fatal outcome is fully justified by his stated intent.

In game terms, I'd look to hold a quick trial and then a summary execution. Knowledge Local (or Religion, for the Paladin) might give some precedence to how best to do that.

If the DM has eliminated *every* other option, the only ones left are to justifiably kill an evil creature, or to knowingly let him go to commit an evil act...after which you can go kill him (as long as he doesn't just surrender, knowing you won't kill him).

If the DM had let the Intimidation check work, there might be a reasonable third option, but he's nerfed that too...kill him (the Agent that is), and let your deity sort out the paperwork.