I have a couple ideas on this one.
1. Oracle with the Consumed or Powerless Prophecy curse and the Life mystery(Or, if you want to go ultra new testament, Apocalypse mystery)
2. Angelfire Apostle Cleric
3. Ecclesitheurge Cleric
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I would suggest first looking at the half orc chassis, and finding what appeals to you the most, as there are two main abilities for a bloodrager you really won't need: Orc ferocity and weapon familiarity. I suggest trading these out, to get either the Human Raised ability for an extra skill point each level, or Sacred Tattoo for the save bonus, as well as Get Thoughts to get Use Magic Device and another skill from the list as class skills. I have done a lot of looking at the Aberrant and Arcane bloodlines, and my opinion is that if you go Arcane, primalist really won't come into play until level 12, where Aberrant starts netting you rage powers at level 8. If you go Arcane, you will generally want to keep the level 4 and 8 abilities for the free buffs. The power is not only the action economy of having the buff not cost an action, but it's flexible based on the environment. Fighting archers? Look who has protection from arrows ready. Lots of rogues? Blur is a good friend. Floor is suddenly lava? We'll, that should irritate you enough to crawl up the walls with spider climb. Aberrant, the big kicker is level four. 5 feet of extra reach while raging, means fifteen feet of reach when enlarged, without using a reach weapon. That is a lot of squares on the battlefield. Level 8 and twelve, that let's you swap out for some wonderful rage powers. If you pick up Intrnal Fortitude at 8, you still have your standard immunity, but now you get a rage power on top of it. Some would say the least totem line would be ideal, and it is pretty much the gold standard. Looking at a different angle, I would suggest something different with Aberrant. The Nodachi is a wonderful eastern weapon. 1d10 18-20/x2 works well with you level 1 bloodline power. Pick up power attack, raging vitality, intimidating prowess, and cornugon smash. For rage powers, pick up Superstition, Witch Hunter, Spell Sunder, and Internal Fortitude.
In this case, the FAQ gives specific examples for the language it is attempting to clarify. The first is an example of bardic performance, and the individual performances gained under the larger umbrella of bardic performance being the abilities changed out. Specifically, while an archetype replacing Fascinate or Countersong are technically altering the overall ability of bardic performance, it is not a change to the complete ability. Similarly with Weapon Training, if one archetype only altered Weapon Training 1 and no other abilities, it could be stacked with any other archetype that modified any instance of Weapon Training except Weapon Training 1. In the bard's case, if one archetype only replaces countersong, and another only replaces fascinate, they would stack, as even though it changes sub-abilities under the main ability of bardic performance. For a kineticist, this would apply if one archetype altered Plasma Blast, and another archetype altered Steam Blast. They would not conflict on that instance, as even though they both modify a specific instance of Composite Blast, it is only a specific type of Composite Blast, not the feature itself. If something altered how the entirety of Composite Blast functioned, such as reducing the burn cost, and another archetype altered the burn cost of Plasma Blast, they would not be compatible as the parent Composite Blase feature had been altered. In the case of Elemental Annihilator and Kinetic Knight, the ability changed out that causes the conflict is the infusion gained at third level. When you select Kinetic Knight, you trade out the third level infusion and supercharge for Knight's Resolve. When you then attempt to apply Elemental Annihilator, you no longer have a third level infusion to trade out. You have Knight's Resolve, which does not meet the requirement to trade out a 3rd level infusion. The last sentence on the FAQ has the kicker to this, which means there will never be 100% agreement on this subject - This is all up to the GM at the table. If that GM allows it, it's fine. If not, then that's the way that GM has decided to run it. Personally? I think archetypes could be more flexible for abilities, and any game I run I say that archetypes can stack as long as the changes the archetypes would make would work if applied in either order. For instance, if the only conflict to two archetypes would be a level 20 ability, and nothing would be changed in the levels prior either way, I would let the player stack the archetypes. In this case, I might give it to the player if they took Knight's Resolve, and moved the extended range infusion that would normally be placed in at 3rd level infusion to the 9th level infusion, and the character did not gain extreme range as the archetype normally gives. That is entirely depending on reviewing how the archetype abilities would interact with each other. Again, that would be a house rule. Not anything official. Officially, it doesn't stack.
Increased Range (Su): This ability replaces the 3rd- and 9th-level infusions. and Knight’s Resolve (Ex): This ability replaces the kineticist infusion gained at 3rd level and supercharge. As they both replace the 3rd level infusion, they are not compatible and do not stack.
Haunted Oracle ain't a bad suggestion. Pretty much gets the force powers from the curse, and Vader seems like he would jive well with a curse. And then the mystery can fill in the martial aspect. Plus, the curse totally jives with the movies. Name one time a character drops something and it lands less than 48 feet away. I'll wait.
Samsaran arcanist - his past lives are other people's, and new ones keep coming.
I would suggest Rage Prophet. Barbarian archetype of your choosing, invulnerable would work well, then oracle with the haunted curse and the metal mystery. Gain mage hand, levitate, telekinesis and reverse gravity from the curse, and take Vision in Iron for scrying, skill at arms for heavy armor, and armor mastery to make full plate suck less for you. Pick up a bastard sword(post armor Vader always fought with two hands anyway), eventually make it adamantine. Spontaneous spells are some of the easiest to learn for a new player, and the oracle has some decent ones. Command, Divine Favor, Augury, Boneshaker, Bull's Strength, Hold Person, and Sense Fear all fit, and those are just levels 1 and 2
Depends on your class. Based on the class spell list, you'll get access to certain things earlier or later, and be able to better build towards them. In general, I believe the divine classes excel at the creation, management, and deployment of the formerly living. Arcane classes tend to excel in draining the life force out of their foes via direct attack.
I knew I was forgetting something. Well, it could still theoretically carry me while detached, right? At that point, if it was built off a wallaby with it's natural 12 strength, it could still end up with a light load Max of 299 lbs after the reduction from small size, if my math is right.
So, I've been working on an Aberrant Bloodline Eldritch Scion Magus idea for a while now, and I had Aberrant Tumor slotted in as my 5th level feat. I had originally planned on taking the protector archetype, but just stumbled onto the errata that that isn't possible anymore. So, I started looking at other ideas... And then I started to wonder if I could get flight. Tumor familiar states The tumor acts as the alchemist’s familiar whether attached or separated (providing a skill bonus, the Alertness feat, and so on). which, to me, indicates it can take actions. Especially when considering the text As a standard action, the alchemist can have the tumor detach itself from his body as a separate creature. So, it can take actions on its own, but it's a standard action to detach. Well... what if we didn't want it to? Figment familiar archetype gives 2 points worth of eidolon evolution points that don't require a base form requirement. Flight is a 2 point evolution, to grant "large wings, like those of a bat, bird, insect, or dragon, gaining the ability to fly". Doesn't require a base form. We apply flight to a Compsognathus form tumor familiar. It has strength 8. We craft muleback cords for it, which increases it's strength to 16 for the purpose of carrying capacity. We then put a heavyload belt on it, which triples it's strength for carrying capacity, giving it a light load of 228 lbs or less. After the flight evolution, it would gain a fly speed equal to it's base speed - 40ft, with good maneuverability as it is Tiny. At that point, would my imaginary flying tumor compy be able to merge onto my back, and use its move actions to carry me while flying? Or have I just been getting too little sleep?
Dot for later.
I've used trees on several occasions. Once to do the sleeping bag kill from Jason, a few times as thrown items. ...my barbarian's strength score and carrying capacity are pretty nuts, we have an engineer among our player group, and a lenient DM. Said engineer also has a backup character for our current game who is a priest who uses a thurible as a meteor hammer. My favorite story actually comes from the Dark Heresy system, where a character with all jammed weapons was thrown into a ruined building, and as a last resort, threw a brick at his enemy. Proceeded to roll perfectly on the dice, and killed a Chaos Space Marine. With a thrown brick. He then carried that brick in a holster for the rest of the campaign.
I'm very fond of the oft-overlooked Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bolas for this sort of character. (Though I suppose if you've got healing spells you could opt for a harpoon instead and rely on the game mechanics that make an instant fatality with the weapon unlikely.) He's saying that any damage that does not kill an enemy is, by definition, non-lethal damage. If you have cure spells, as long as you can get to the enemy before they bleed out, you can do whatever you want without killing them. The harpoon deals lethal damage, but as long as you have something to heal the HP damage, a harpoon could effectively disable and snare an opponent as well as anything else, and after the fact healing makes it, mechanically, like nothing ever happened. Example: I stab opponent A in the kidneys, they pass out from blood loss. I use stabilize to patch their wound, shackle them and throw them in a wagon, and heal them right before I turn in the bounty. Who's to say he didn't have that scar before I found him? Kidney works now, he's got nothing to complain about. On topic, I'm a fan of a ninja with an array of weapons, blunt and sharp, with the Bludgeoner feat. Nonlethal sneak attacks when you need them, lethal when you don't, all the skills and Ki abilities to get to your target, and a good enough charisma to negotiate for a higher price once you nab him. Plus, I've always been a fan of the image of a sneak attack with an earthbreaker. Yes, I know it's a martial weapon. Dip a level of Guide ranger and be happy with what the game gives you. Also: Tanglefoot bags. Always tanglefoot bags.
Okay, this one interests me. Here's how I would do it: First things first, experience and levels. Don't nitpick XP. It's a handy tool, but for a campaign that isn't going to be based around the standard 4 combat encounter per day model, I find it tends to become more bookwork than needed. You have an idea when you'd like the party to level? That's when they level. The biggest thing is that leveling grants new abilities, some of which will need some time to get used to, and most of the time they feel like a reward. This makes them perfect for end of sessions after big moments. Party got through a long escape sequence from a monster and saved the civilians? Bing, level. Party went through a major quest line and got the help of a major city? Bing, level. My experience is that, depending on how often you play, once every 2 to 4 sessions tends to work. Next up, plot/encounter layout. Start mapping out event triggers. Split the campaign into chunks. Example, we'll do Intro, Discovery, Buildup, Climax, Aftermath. Five segments, now we take each segment and break them down. Depending on how long you want each segment to last, set up and start mapping out different event triggers you want to go off. Pacing is key here. Horror campaigns and Quest campaigns can have many of the same elements, yet each feels different because the different phases last different times, and even in the specific campaign genres, you can set up different feels. Say you want to run this with a fast and loose Intro phase, a short and scripted Discovery phase, a freeform Buildup phase, a short and tough Climax phase, and an open ended Aftermath. Start at the intro, sketch out a few encounters. A fight against looters, fleeing down a narrow road from a stampede, a kid trapped in a burning building, monsters on the loose, debris from a building collapsing. Think up a bunch of these, and after you have a bunch of ideas, start splitting them up into groups you like. Say day one, grab four or five of the ideas, scale them to the level you expect the party to be at, and set the party loose. As they go through the day, spring the events on them when the time feels right. Same for day 2, day 3, and so on. Figure out a rough plan for each phase, and just break it down from there. You don't have to work on a whole phase at once, just break it down to smaller and smaller steps. The biggest thing is leave wiggle room for the players to do their own thing, and try to figure out at least two, if not three ways to start the next event in line, because your players are not going to think like you do. Also, think up fail states. What happens if the players don't get something done the way you planned? the wrong spell goes off, and an NPC dies, or a McGuffin gets all blowed up. Another fun note: Environment is the one thing that is forgotten about in many games. All fights don't happen on a battlemat. Some happen in a swamp, where the players can't move as well. Some happen at night, where the players holding torches are a walking bulls eye. Sometimes the party gets the jump on a tough foe, sometimes the foe is injured. Every now and then, they come across an ally that can help out. Sometimes they come across a group of ten orcs at level one, an earthquake happens, and only five survive the building falling down on them. Dynamic environments and traps can do a lot to move the challenge slider both ways. EDIT: Oh, and biggest tip for any new campaign writer. It's not going to be perfect, things are going to go wrong, and you will slip up. That's normal, and okay. Great campaigns aren't the ones where everything goes according to plan, they're the ones where everyone at the table has fun. Prep helps, it helps a lot, but nothing is going to get you through this more than having an idea of where you'd like the story to go and improvising when the details don't match.
It doesn't really tell me much there. I'd like to expand my horizon by seeing what the people have to say. Here's the thing...the Paladin class doesn't have a whole lot of room for expanding horizons. The class has enough valid options that it could fill several different roles, but the core things it does well are hardwired into the class. You don't get expanded feat selection, you don't get world-altering spells. You're going to be some type of physical damage dealer that's predominantly focused on staying alive. Want to be a big damage dealer? Pick up a greatsword and snag Power Attack, maybe switch out to a falchion and grab Improved Crit. Archer? Check out the archer archetype, grab a longbow, snag Deadly Aim and maybe Rapid Shot. Healer? Pick up Fey Foundling, Extra Lay on Hands, maybe Greater Mercy. Smite Monkey? Oath of Vengeance. DM only throwing enemies that attack your AC? Pick up a shield and Shield Focus. Miss skills? Dip another class, you can handle a one level delay. Honestly, the main choices you get are going to be your feats at 1, 3, 5, 7, and maybe 9. Those are the bread and butter of any build, and 4-5 choices don't give you a lot of room for nitpicking, you pick up whatever will give you the biggest return for investment.
With the builds listed, I would personally go with the archery bard, followed closely by the support cleric. Personal preference? I'd start as a half-elven cleric, grab a reach weapon, and dip bard at level 2. Everyone likes the charismatic preacher. Especially the charismatic preacher that provides a flanking bonus.
Maybe add Greater Mercy, but otherwise I agree, this build just rocks. Greater Mercy was always one I wanted to add in, but my groups tend to be weak on ranged support, so I usually pick up Deadly Aim with my builds instead. a similar self-healing build using a core race. (human 20 point buy, ideally) Really, the basic build is similar no matter what race you use, just trades off priorities. If I were going a core book race for a paladin, especially a self healing build, I'd go human. With any paladin build, you aren't going to have any room to buff your intelligence, so the extra skill point makes a big difference to me, and as I said above, the ability to snag Fey Foundling and Power Attack at level 1 is entirely too good to pass up. For stat builds, it just goes on your priority route. My paladins tend to prioritize Cha > Str > Con > Dex = Int = Wis. You'll want some Dex for AC and ranged attacks, but you don't need a bunch. If I get my charisma high enough, I put Int above Wis, otherwise I value the boost to my Will saves more than the skill point. Feats wise, Fey Foundling and Power Attack at level once, then it's your choice of Greater Mercy, Extra Lay on Hands, Improved Initiative, or pretty much anything that boosts your offense. The biggest key is being enough of a threat that the enemies see a legitimate point to beating on you, otherwise all the self-healing in the world doesn't do jack for you. First build I did along these lines went sword and board, and I jacked up all my defenses so high I was nigh-unhittable, but ended up wasting all the resources I spent on improving my healing simply because I wasn't taking damage. Depending on how the campaign looks/is going, I also tend to dip either Sohei, Rogue, or Ranger. It puts your healing a level behind, and I wouldn't dream of doing it until level 3 or 5, but each has a pretty valid reason to grab in my opinion. Sohei takes a hit to your offensive capabilities to net you a bonus to ALL of your saves, a smattering of skills that, let's be honest, you probably suck at, and the ability to always act in the surprise round. Rogue boosts your weakest save and gives you a bunch of skills we know you suck at, and Ranger boosts your offensive abilities vs a specific enemy, boosts your strongest and weakest saves, and gives you a smattering of skills that you probably suck at. Can you tell my overall opinion of low Reflex saves and skill points from that paragraph? Lol.
My experience with a paladin tends to be best off focusing on self healing. My personal favorite is a Pitborn Tiefling using the alternate favored class bonus from ARG, taking Fey Foundling at level 1. Upon your second level of Paladin, your Lay on Hands heals you for 1d6+4 as a swift action, which could be a third to half your hit points depending on your Con. Having been screwed by the dice more times than I can count, those bonus points have saved my hide a bunch. Focus mainly on charisma to get the most uses of lay on hands, take power attack at third level to boost your melee damage, go Oath of Vengeance for the option of burning your spare uses of LoH for extra smites, and start picking up Extra LoH for bonus healing/damage. Alternatively, you can go human. You lose some static healing bonuses, but make up for it with the extra feat. Fey Foundling and Power Attack at level one can get scary, especially with good party tactics and a reach weapon.
I'm going to chime in, having played a Boreal sorcerer, and just say that the bloodline felt much more suited to someone going for a frost giant vibe, not so much an ice mage vibe. I'd highly suggest going Elemental(Water). If you're looking for a damage boost, you can always go Crossblooded with Draconic(Silver), and snag extra damage and a bonus to Perception. Creative re-flavoring of spells can help, too. Grease becomes a thin sheet of ice, Obscuring Mist becomes a thick snow cloud, so on. Hell, Color Spray can be simply explained as a manifestation of the Northern Lights.
The key for me is that barbarians don't specifically need to be chaotic, just non-lawful. Ever been so frustrated with something you tuned out everything else? How about a neutral barbarian whose rage isn't a berserk fury, but a hyper-focus. He tunes out everything and puts 110% effort into one goal. How about a former soldier who suffers from post-traumatic stress? Every so often, he loses where he is and is back in whatever hell he walked out of during service. Can't focus, but everything in his body goes into survival instinct. Or one of my favorite tropes, the really nice guy. The nice guy who doesn't like to hurt anyone, jokes around all the time, but has a switch. Flip the switch, and he loses all morals, decency, and care. Works especially well if you've put the switch to be harm to another party member. Barbarian is one of my favorite classes, and the one of the reasons is that the entire idea of the class is based around a fighter who isn't good out of skill, but sheer force. He can be the guy who runs through a hail of arrows and run through ten men to save a fallen comrade. Pretty much any concept of a martial character who uses instinct more than training can fit into a barbarian, with minor tweaking. Example of difference? Wolverine and Colossus can both be modeled off the barbarian class.
Exactly. I see we are in agreement.
First off, the majority of things I listed off was an example of things the fighter could do at once. No, the fighter does not get any special powers that a commoner does not. He does gain the ability to have combat abilities via bonus feats while having the same option for out of combat things the commoner does. In effect, yes, he can do out of combat things the commoner can't, in that he can do more things than the commoner can. The ability that makes him a better blacksmith is a feat called Skill Focus. Yes, a feat anyone can take. It's also a feat the fighter can take while gaining other feats the commoner cannot, simply due to not being able to take that many feats. I also disagree about combat feats being exclusively useful in combat. I need to cut down a tree to cross a chasm. Power attack lets me do that quicker. An archery contest is held. Weapon Focus helps you win. Marathon. So on and so forth. Does the fighter get extra special fighter abilities that no other class gets? Nope. The fighter gets the same options every other character gets in feats, yet he gets more of them. Let's turn this around a bit. Tell me what a wizard can do that a commoner can't. Without using magic or magical abilities.
A 1st level Human Fighter can sleep in medium armor, run longer, and go without food longer, while being able to properly finesse an Elven Curve Blade. The human commoner cannot do all three of those things. For the record, neither can the human paladin or barbarian. They can do 2 of those three, but not all. At second level, that fighter can also choose to power attack with that weapon. Then, at third level, he can also become a 15% better blacksmith. The commoner can choose to do one of those things, but not both. Neither can the paladin. Why do I bring the paladin up, especially when he's getting Smite Evil and a bonus to his saves? Simple, those are his class abilities. The fighter's class abilities aren't dedicated to doing things no one else can, they are dedicated to being able to do more things that everyone could choose to than anyone else. I can't count the number of builds I've done where I have thought "Man, I wish I had an extra feat or two by this level, so I could do...". Hell, I would love to be able to play a Paladin who could heal extra HP if he didn't have any reason to use his mercy. ...oh wait, that's a feat. That I can't grab at 3rd level if I want to have Power Attack and Weapon Finesse while playing an Elf. I almost forgot, a commoner with an intelligence of 10 can't have 5 knowledge skills maxed for his level. A fighter can (lore warden).
Yeah, Climb and Acrobatics was less about being really good at them and more about shoring up my weaknesses. I was writing this fellow up to be a Lantern Lodge supporter, so I figured Diplomacy and Sense Motive would help me out a fair bit. As far as most of the rest of your advice, it was usually on the sheet already. :D Just how I play all my characters. Have you double-checked the legality of all the content you're using? For instance, I've never heard of that second trait of yours. Triple, actually. Valashmai Veteran is a trait out of the Dragon Empires Primer, according to d20pfsrd.com, and the organized play book says all traits are legal from that book except Chosen Child and Rebel Leader. Relatedly, do you own the source material for all your non-Core-Assumption options? HeroLab and d20pfsrd.com don't count; if your GM doesn't already know all your stuff, you're going to need to be able to hand him/her either the book or a printout of the relevant pages of a PDF. I actually do not, but I had planned for this. Once I have the details on the character fleshed out, I was going to be picking up the relevant PDFs or books roughly the level before I took them, or in the case of the player's guide above, pick it up a few days before the session. One thought: I see you're planning on taking Deadly Aim, which I assume means you want to be a passable archer. As such, I suggest taking the Divine Hunter archetype, which gets you Precise Shot at first level without having to meet prerequisites for it. Deadly Aim was less about wanting to be a good archer and more about most of the guides I've read saying pretty much every character should have a way of doing reliable ranged damage. If I stuck with the thrown weapons, I wouldn't have much via scaling damage, where grabbing DA after level 4 would at least give me the option of boosting by a few points if I needed to. Thanks for all the advice, folks. It's being a big help for me figuring out what I'm getting into.
I use a ton of 3 ring binders for my character records/downloaded PDFs. Depending on the price point and what it actually looked like, I'd totally be interested in this.
First off, thanks for the advice. Few questions for clarification, though.... Looks pretty good, i would drop the int to 12 and start with a 14 con though.. Paladins are not skill monkeys and with the human bonus 3 is enough.. Diplomacy/Perception max at each level and u have a point to bounce ard.. I would suggest a profession to bank extra gold via "day job".. I'm assuming you meant 10, as my Int is already 12, lol. My understanding of the way society worked was that you'd never really know who you were sitting down to the table with, so I figured a little bit of rounding rather than straight optimization might benefit me via being able to cover a broader base to deal with, or at least offset my armor check penalty with the correct gear. Especially with no real way to mitigate the ACP from heavy armors, I figured a few extra skill points across the levels may help me out. As far as Con to 14 right away, with this set up I have 12 HP at level 1, 20 at 2, 28 at 3, and 40 at 4 when I bump my Con up. Would this not be enough? Range wise go with a str pull comp lb, it really cant be beat and unless ur going to open with it and drop it every combat or pick up quick draw i would not take deadly aim.. I can see the bow at later levels, but is the gap that big at the early levels? It's a standard action to use either, but with a bow, you either have to sheath it, which takes a move action, or drop it to draw your melee weapon, at which point your ranged weapon is no longer available to you. Plus, the composite longbow for a +2 Strength is 300 gp to get 1d8 with a x3 crit, while a chakram is 1 gp for 1d8 with x2 crit. Both use dex for attack rolls, both use Str for damage rolls, if I'm correct(I may not be. I never used thrown weapoms before)
Hello all. Due to some instability with my regular gaming group's schedule, I'm planning on jumping into Society play, hopefully this weekend. With that said, I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row for not only the character, but the first outing. First off, the build. Planning on: Human Paladin
STR: 14(+2 racial)
Feats: 1. Fey Foundling H. Power Attack
Skills: Perception, Climb, and Acrobatics every level, Sense Motive on odd levels and Diplomacy on even levels. Favored Class bonus: HP pretty much all the time, unless I'm really hungry for skill points later on. Equipment: Planning on starting with Kikko armor and an optional light shield for the whole living until session 2 thing. Currently torn on only grabbing a one handed weapon and double fisting it for first session, or spending the cash to grab the Earthbreaker I want to use right away. As far as ranged, I was figuring thrown weapons rather than a bow. When magic items come into play, I figure I'll go for CON boosting first, followed by either CHA or STR, depending on where the rest of my defenses are. Thinking I'm going to pick up Oath of Vengeance, because there's really no reason not to. Thoughts on anything I've done horribly wrong? With the build out of the way, I'm also looking for advice on making sure I'm ready for the first session, as I've never done any organized play before. I have my badge, I have printouts/books of all the material I'm using, the additional resources list, I've read the two big "Things we expect of you at X levels" threads in the PFS forum, is there really anything else I need outside of bringing my dice and making sure my pants are on? Thanks for your time.
I love orcs. One of my fondest campaign ideas has always been a seemingly disjointed series of events that turns out to be the initial reactions to several orc tribes unifying and clashing with their own culture. Small little events that show no real commonality other than a weird shift in the status quo, and then suddenly... Bam. Orc siege on a major capital city out of nowhere, complete with necromancers and suicide siege weapons. Not even Lord of the Rings style, just murder hobos turned up to eleven.
Figure the average on all those dice, though. A d6 averages 3.5, a d4 averages 2.5. The greatsword's average damage is 7 alone, the falchion is 5 by itself. A difference in 2 damage per hit, but the extra crit from the falchion evens that out. Bigger deal - extra damage dice aren't multiplied on a crit.
Why is that? The way I've used for calculating things like this is taking your results over the span of twenty rolls, one on each possible result of the d20 roll. In your case, say the falchion hit on a roll of eleven or higher dealing ten damage as it is now. When not raging, neither option would give you a direct, across the board damage boost. While raging, the furious weapon would pull ahead, by not only adding 2 extra damage on the ten hits you had before, but converting 2 of the misses to hits as well. This puts you at 100 damage in the keen case, but 144 with the furious weapon. Of course, this doesn't count in keen's extra crits. Same example, but we'll take threats into account. You'd now threaten a crit on a 15-20, but you would have to confirm on the ones you rolled. Going off the "hitting on an eleven" basis, you'd be at about 50% of the crits being confirmed - 1.5 extra crits for double damage, on top of the 1.5 you get normally. Three crits puts the damage total at 130. The furious would threaten less often, but it would confirm those threats more while raging. Admittedly, these are small numbers, where the multiplier on the keen doesn't fare the greatest. Same hit numbers dealing 20 per hit puts the keen to 260, with furious at 264(not including threats) while raging. If you plan on doing a lot of fights outside of rage, or you're already hitting on rolls under ten consistently, keen pulls ahead. Otherwise, the extra +attack from furious gets you harder hits more often. This isn't even taking dice hate into account: how many threats do you roll when the monster is under fifteen HP and the crit wouldn't matter anyway? Heh.
Furious for me, every time. I figure I'm either going to take Keen or Improved Critical, and for that +1 I can snag one of them, or snag the other and pick up a +2 to hit and damage while I'm raging.
when a player asks "May i play an Orc?" there is only one reason i think he would ask. and it is pretty obvious. he wishes to Dump his mental stats down to the abyss and raise his physical stats up to celestia and play a barbarian. a player like that wouldn't care about int and cha, as long as they kill things, but would complain the moment they have to make a will save. Just want to chime in on this comment as a player of an orc barbarian. I chose the race for a specific concept, which the orc race best fit. I currently play with a bonus in both wisdom and charisma (would have gone for intelligence and wisdom, but the hybrid roll/point buy my DM was using didn't go my way on that). I frequently find myself wanting for more skill points and the extra feat, and with how absurd my strength is already the additional +2 I got from going orc over human doesn't matter much, especially considering the loss of the superstition bonus from the human favored class. I chose orc because it fit the concept better. Plus, ferocity has saved my bacon as I've gone into negatives every session of play. Just wanted to let you know we do exist. [/derail]
Since you're looking at avoiding MAD, you could still do Cleric/Sorc/MT, just take the Empyreal version of the celestial bloodline. Use your sorcerer levels to go nuts on your blasty spells, and use the cleric list to be your utility.
Lore Warden Fighter. Feat, 1 point of BAB, 4 Skill points, and all Int-based skills as class skills. Hard to go wrong for any martial character who'd like a bit more variance to his skill pool. Ninja. A bunch of exotic weapons, 8 skill points, and a bunch of the best skills as class skills, just in case you didn't have them already.
On a rather flamboyant sorcerer I played, it was used to create a very small wind to have his hair and cloak blowing dramatically on any entrance he made.
Lots of good advice so far. I'll throw out a few clarifications on my end: First, our party has no cleric. I would be playing the only caster of any sort. This was one of the first things that made me look at wizard instead of another spontaneous caster, as I'm thinking the versatility to change depending on the day and the multitude of options to be prepared may just offset the rest of the party being nonmagical characters. Second, I'm more than willing to put the time in to figure out my spells, I just want to make sure that I'm not going to be slowing things down at the table. The last thing I want is to go from having so few options I'm in a constant WoW state of "GOGOGO" to having so many options, that even if I'm familiar with them, it'll be hard to divide resources accordingly in my head. "Do I go with create pit, even though we may not have a combat encounter today? How should I prep in case we encounter a flying enemy? Does my list have room for scorching ray?" Those kind of questions are the ones I could pour over with a sorcerer and take my dear sweet time considering before I got to the table, but it seems like I'd have to be making those at the table as a wizard. As far as Wizard vs Sorcerer, my thoughts on the subject come down to a matter of play style. Some people prefer having more options available to them for the theory of the game, many of the claims I've seen of the prepared caster have been in the regard of "If I have spell X prepared for situation Y, we win." My response to this has usually been, "Yeah, but what if you come across situation Z? Or you get interrupted in situation Y and lose the spell?" Some people like the toolbox approach of a sorcerer. These are the tools you get to fix the problem, make it work. Sure, if you fill your toolbox with hammers and you come across a situation needing a wrench you're screwed, but if you keep the toolbox stocked with general all-round tools, you're set to deal with everything, maybe not as precise as a wizard, but at least deal. Thanks again for the advice so far.
Hello. I'm building up a backup character for a home game, and I've been attempting to challenge myself. I've played spellcasters and enjoyed them, but so far they have all been sorcerers with one or two oracles. Okay, once I played a cleric that was so specced-out all he did was spontaneous cast domain spells back in 3.5. Either way, I'm not used to dealing with prepared spells. My first challenge is that most of out game days cover multiple days of campaign world time, and I'd like to find a way to streamline my time spent picking spells for my character. The cool thing about a wizard is that I'd have a bunch of versatility, but I don't want to bog down game time constantly by re-doing my spell list. I'd prefer to do it in a way where I don't bring an extra electronic device to the table, as D&D is my escape from LCD hobby. With that, how would I be advised to split my spells per day amongst offensive, defensive, other, and left open? As I level up, it seems like I'd be able to split the load more evenly figuring scrolls, wands, and other magic items, but building for low level presents me with the challenge of dividing an already small resource pool of spells per day and character wealth. ...or, should I just say screw it and try to convince my DM to give a sorcerer the wizard spell progression, as I'm willing to take a versatility hit, but being a level behind in spells has kinda sucked for a while.
I'd personally go with the Mobile Fighter Archetype and a reach weapon. 1. Dodge, Combat Reflexes, Power Attack
Probably not the strongest build, but with 20 Con and 22 Str, there's really not a whole lot else you'll need starting out. With 18 Dex, there's very little reason in my opinion to not get Combat Reflexes, as you move from 1 attack per round to the possibility of up to 5 with good positioning and tactics. Iron Will replaces bravery for your weak save, and the Spring Attack tree should get you wherever you'd like to go. I especially like that when you aren't fighting creatures with reach, you get to make trip attacks without provoking an attack of opportunity, so you don't even really need the improved trip feat.
Personally, I would roll with a Paladin, but that's just me. I think you could get a lot of mileage out of an Elemental(Fire) bloodlined Sorcerer, especially if you want to play up the fire/pyromancer theme. Especially considering the bloodline Arcana is the ability to switch any energy damage you deal to fire, so you can safely choose any non-fire energy spell and be able to dodge the energy resistance it usually has. Shocking Grasp? HAVE SOME FIRE!
You get the idea. This gives you a neat way to change up your blasty spells, and you now have flexibility, something a sorcerer seriously lacks. Ear-piercing scream gives you a fire/sonic spell that targets Fortitude and has a daze effect. Acid Arrow now deals fire/acid, and dodges spell resistance and saves.
The above quote was taken from the "Big and Little Creatures in Combat" section of the combat chapter. I'm not concerned about when I'm my normal medium size, but more the idea of not threatening squares of up to my natural reach when I am Enlarged, which by rules text of Enlarge Person is 10'. The Near and Far feat I mentioned above takes care of adjacent squares, but not the 10' options, according to my understanding of the rules.
Thanks for the quick response. I already have "adjacent" covered via a third party feat my DM has approved, but the main question came from the enlarging, as I'd have a dead zone that I wouldn't technically threaten via the feat. For a poorly diagrammed example: R R D F X F D R R R = Reach weapon F = Adjacent square threatened via feat X = My character and D = Dead zone, as the wording of the feat specifies adjacent, not something like "Within your normal reach".
Hello. I'm building a reach fighter, and I'm pondering the viability of enlarge person and the lunge feat into the build. The lunge feat reads that "I may increase my reach by 5 feet". Does this necessarily have to be outward, or can I "increase" my reach inward? For example, a fighter wielding a reach weapon threatens 10' away, but not adjacent foes. Could he theoretically Lunge and attack adjacent enemies by increasing his reach 5' inward? Say he imbibes a potion of enlarge person. He now threatens at 15' and 20', but not 10' or adjacent. Could he increase it inward to attack at 10', 15', and 20', or would he have to extend it outward to attack 15', 20', and 25'? Thanks for any help.
Hi. Was looking into applying the skeleton template to an ankylosaurus, and ran into a question regarding the stun ability. It's listed as follows: Melee: tail +14 (3d6+12 plus stun) And then described under "Special abilities". I was originally just assuming this would be a special quality, until I had that confirmed by the animal companion section. This raises my question: Would this be retained by the skeleton? It's an Ex. ability, and I would certainly classify it as improving the melee attack, so my understanding is that it would stay. However, this leads me to the imp, whose melee attack is listed as: Melee: sting +8 (1d4 plus poison) with poison being described identically to the stun ability of the ankylosaurus. Would an imp skeleton retain poison on it's sting attack? Or am I looking at these abilities wrong, in that they're not so much "improving" the attack as adding to it? Thank you very much for your help.
Please. Please, I'm begging. Please. Will there be any orc racial weapons? I tried Orcs of Golarion. I tried the Advanced Races guide. I tried APG. ...it hurts me...
I like this. It makes me smile.
Add my vote to Glitterdust, and currently playing a Boreal bloodline sorcerer, I heartily endorse Stinking Cloud.
While this may be the case, I still want to see this happen in a game. Hell, I want to do it. I want to strangle a dragon to death. Get the guy from Man vs. Wild on the phone, I have a television opportunity for him.
AM is his first name Incorrect. It is in fact, his middle name.
I admit, my understanding of some of the more powerful options of this game have eluded me. I was raised in a "Big numbers are all that matter" style of D&D, and I've been finding it lackluster as of late. I'm currently playing a spellcaster focused on battlefield control, and enjoying it, but I like to have a backup character ready just in case. With the party being a bit melee-light at this point, I had the urge for a paladin. If I go the two-handed route, I'm really thinking reach weapon, but I'm not 100% sure how to make the most of it, especially without investing the majority of feats. So, my question is: What are the tactics that set reach weapons apart? Is it just the extended reach, and if so, how does that play out when Large and larger opponents start coming into play? Is the trip or disarm style something that needs to be followed to get things to work, or is that just a personal choice?
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