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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?

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
Traits: Adopted(Warrior of Old), Valashmai Veteran

STR: 14(+2 racial)
DEX: 14
CON: 13 (+1 @4th)
INT: 12
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

Feats: 1. Fey Foundling H. Power Attack
3. Greater Mercy
5. Deadly Aim or Extra Lay on Hands

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.

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.

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.

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?

Background: A friend of mine has started a Pathfinder game using some of the most broken houserules I have ever come across. I'd rather not get into examples, but the gist is that trying to play non-cheese gets you killed, as you have to keep up with the rest of the abilities he hands out. I'm not actually in this game currently, as my work schedule is preventing it, but in case I do, I'd like to have a character ready. The current party consists of a Half-Dragon Barbarian, Gnome Witch, Tauric Gnome-Blink Dog Rogue, and a Time Lord. You read that all right, details basically sum up that I have no desire to make a damage oriented character, as I can be pretty much outclassed in that regard. Thus, the thread title.

Starting at level 6, the current build idea:

Suli Paladin 2/Fighter 4
Str: 18
Dex: 17
Con: 18
Int: 12
Wis: 16
Cha: 16 (Scores are rolled via DM's preferred method, all legit and after modifiers)

The idea is getting all defenses as high as possible, thus the Suli choice for resistance. With +1 full plate, a +1 light shield, +1 ring of protection, Dodge, and Shield Focus, that puts my AC at around 28. I also have 4 Lay on Hands uses for 1d6 each.

Saves - Fort +14, Ref +7, Will +10
Resistance 5 Acid, Cold, Electricity, and Fire.

I think I still have 4 feats open, I'm thinking of going after the Urumi from Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, and being an annoyance. Exotic Proficiency takes one of those, and with improved reach, Combat Reflexes is almost required. Two feats left, I was originally thinking Missle Shield to negate the ranged attacks that actually get through, and then the last one had me debating between Stand Still and something else.

Truth be told, the character will probably never see play. I can concede that I won't contribute in most ways, I'm just looking to pretty much annoy whatever monster comes anywhere near me. Any advice in this regard?

So, a buddy of mine is interested in playing the Predator in an upcoming game, and he knows I'm the most familiar with the Pathfinder rules, so I got the request to write it up. I did a rough runthrough, and this is suggested to be balanced by the Alpha's rules, but I admit to not being the most familiar with the Yautja as a whole(I've only seen the first and last Predator movies), thus my post here.

From what I've read/remember, most of the main Predator tricks would either functionally magic items or class levels, specifically ranger levels. That said, here's my rough outline and explanations.

Yautja
Monstrous Humanoid: 2 rp
(Monstrous explains the alien nature, and Darkvision gets close to the infra-red without being ultra out-there.)
Medium: 0 rp
Normal Speed: 0 rp
Standard Modifiers - +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Cha: 0 rp
(I originally thought putting the bonus to Con, but that got too close to making a tribal Dwarf for my tastes. I figure Str fits better than Dex, Wis explains the cunning, and Cha fits the bill of not being so much the fun of the party. Unless you have weird parties.)
Xenophobic Array, Special - Yautja, Any other non-secret, speak only Yautja: -1 rp
(Here I'll admit to going outside playtest rules, as I couldn't figure out how the whole mandibles thing would work for speaking other languages. This still lets them read, write, and understand, just not verbalize, which is where magic could fill the gap. However, unless another character knows Yautja, there's a significant loss of communication with the rest of the party as far as spur of the moment things go.)
Fearless: 1 rp
Natural Armor: 2 rp
Spell Like Ability - Vanish 2/day: 2 rp
(I wanted to give him a little of the invisibility before magic items became common enough, and Vanish is short enough duration that it's really only situationally useful, in my opinion.)
Weapon Familiarity: 1 rp
(Proficient with nets, Yautja weapons are treated as Martial)
Stalker: 1 rp
Silent Hunter: 2 rp
(These two were really the main "hunter/predator" traits I figured I'd give, as pretty much everything else is summed up by ranger levels. This gives a bit of the stalking and ambush tactics to whatever class, especially with Vanish.)
Total: 10 rp

Equipment:
Yautja Arm Blades 30 gp 1d4 1d6 19/20x2 - 2 lbs S -
Yautja Extending Spear 50 gp * * x3 * 9 lbs P *

Yautja Arm Blades: Worn on the wrist, this pair of blades extends past the wielder's hands. You may wield a weapon or hold an item in the hand of an arm equipped with Yautja Arm blades, but you may not use a shield. In addition, you may use an item(including making an attack with another weapon) with the arm Yautja Arm Blades are equipped to and attack with Yautja Arm Blades in the same round, unless you have intentionally dropped the item. You receive a +5 bonus to avoid being disarmed of Yautja Arm Blades.
Yautja Extending Spear: In it's short form, this spear resembles, and is mechanically identical to, a javelin. By twisting the handle, the spear can extend to become a longspear. As a move action that does not provoke an attack of opprotunity, you may extend the spear. You may also do this as part of a move action if your base attack bonus is +1 or higher. It is a full-round action that does provoke an attack of opprotunity to return the spear to it's short size. A character that is not proficient with the Yautja Extending Spear may wield it in it's current form as either a javelin or a longspear, but they may not change it's form.

I know they're a bit overly complicated and wordy, but I couldn't think of a more elegant wording for them.

There's the basic ideas I had. If anybody can improve on that, I'd be more than interested in hearing it. Thanks for your time.

Ahoy there. I'm a big fan of multiclassing, but I feel it could use a few tweaks. I'm not sure exactly what the Paizo view on multiclassing in the Pathfinder RPG is, but I wanted to try to open up a bit of a discussion on the matter, offer my views, and see what the popular opinions are. Who knows, maybe I've been doing it wrong.

So far, in my experience, martial characters seem to get the upper hand in multiclassing. A fighter taking a level in ranger still gains the usual increase to BAB and saves, almost as if he just took another fighter level. A wizard, on the other hand, would gain a boost to his HP, BAB, and saves, but his spells, which are generally the primary offense and defense, get nothing out of the deal. But that's crossing melee and caster classes, so there's bound to be some disconnect. To me, it gets even stranger when mixing caster classes. A wizard taking a level in sorcerer doesn't advance in arcane spells at all, but gains a small amount of low level spells in addition to the wizard spells he already possessed. That seems off to me.

I've also questioned the rate character effectiveness goes down when multiclassing more than slightly. Generally speaking, small dips hurt character effectiveness the least. Cleric 5/Fighter 1 doesn't hurt that bad when comparing effectiveness to Fighter 6 or Cleric 6. Cleric 3/Fighter 3, on the other hand, seems to lose more. Not only are your spells weaker by caster level, but instead of third level spells you're cast 2nd. If a third class is added to the mix, it seems even worse, as Cleric 2/Fighter 2/Rogue 2 is casting first level spells at caster level 2, can't qualify for weapon specialization, and has a sneak attack damage of +1d6. Yes, they are most versatile, but is the small amount of broad powers comparable to casting 3rd level spells, adding +3d6 on sneak attacks, or the feats and weapon training lost from going straight cleric, rogue, or fighter?

Those were two things I was concerned about when Pathfinder was announced. I haven't yet had a chance to playtest or measure any of the new class features added to the core classes in regards to multiclassing, so I figured I'd bring it up here to see if anyone has, and what the verdict was.

One other thing that crossed my mind was a rule tucked in the sidebars of a couple Dreamscarred Press releases that mentioned multiclassing, and I believe a similar rule was also mentioned in Tome of Battle. Basically, when you gain a level, to determine anything based on class level for a multiclass character, you add half the levels you have in all other classes to figure out power. Seeing as a number of class features are partially based off class level now, I thought it might be something to look into. Consider a barbarian's rage powers. A barbarian 6/fighter 4 using that rule would have an effective barbarian level of 8, and could qualify to select the Clear Mind rage power. If certain classes would gain a lot more from multiclassing with this method, a part of the multiclassing section could be a list of what features of individual classes were eligible to advance using this method.

Thanks for your time, and if you feel I'm entirely off base in my observations, I invite you to throw the tomatoes near the door at me. These are only gut reactions, as I don't have the capability to objectively analyze the intricacies of the game.

Greetings and salutations. Today I had the pleasure of going through the Alpha Book, and wanted to chime in with my thoughts and reactions. Keep in mind, this isn't having playtested anything, just reaction from reading through.

• I strongly dislike the "Unnatural Beauty" elven racial trait. While it does have a fair amount of fantasy backing, I don't like the taste of it as a basic trait. I think a feat or other ability would be a better option.
  
• I think Perform deserves a spot on the list of skills for the gnome racial trait "Obsessive"
  
• It might be a simpler take on racial weapon familiarity if it isn't mentioned in every race, but has a few lines in an equipment chapter. I'm referring to the "*race* treats all weapons with *race* in the name as martial weapons" kind of familiarity. It might be easier to phrase it in the equipment chapter as "All races treat exotic weapons with their race name in the weapon name as martial weapons" or something similar.
  
• I'm a big fan of adding the deity's favored weapon to the cleric proficiency list.
  
• Weapon and armor training look like excellent additions to the fighter class. It's so simple and effective, I can't believe I hadn't already stumbled across it.
  
• I'm uneasy about putting magic in as an option for rogues to pick. To me, that seems like something that should be set aside in multiclassing.
  
• I like the ideas behind the Combat feats.
  
• At the same time, I dislike the Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack chain. To me, Spring Attack would be nicer if it was a two-feat chain. Spring attack lets you move, attack, and move, but limits you to half your movement. Improved Spring Attack would grant full movement with the attack.
  
• While I like the idea behind the Combat Maneuvers system, I think the math is skewed a little the wrong way. The gut reaction looks like it'll always be harder to attempt a maneuver than defend against one. Especially with each Improved feat granting a +2 to that specific maneuver, yet one feat grants a +4 against all types of defenses. The system seems streamlined to be easier for the players to remember how to perform the maneuvers, yet it looks as though if they try them they'll end up disappointed most of the time.
  
• On a related, yet separate note, I love the idea of different degrees of grappling, and the less imposing size modifiers. I would like to voice a cry for one thing I haven't seen yet: An annoy option for grappling. I'd like a smaller character to be able to grapple a larger creature, and while not doing damage or restricting movement, be able to distract, such as clawing at the eyes, riding an unwilling dragon, weigh down a giant scorpion's tail.
  
• I like the broken condition. I think it might even be fun to have it stack with degrees, such as lightly broken, moderately broken, heavily broken, destroyed. Might give a forgiving element to certain monsters while keeping the danger, such as the rust monster. Say each antennae hit to a metal object moves it one step along the broken track, and each metal item striking the rust monster moves it down also. Four hits to destroy something, easily done in a few rounds, yet gives a bit of forgiveness to a normally unforgiving monster.
  
• Enjoy the new turning system, but I was wondering if any thought went into adding different area effect options? I can easily see a cleric who would rather have a cone, line, or even targeted effect.

I wasn't sure where to post this or what formatting to use. Also, I had difficulty in submitting it, so if there are multiple topics, I apologize.

Greetings. I have a short history with tabletop RPGs, but an intense passion for them. 4th Edition came as not a real shocker to me, but the events and previews following did. Mechanically, the tidbits we got looked okay, some going as far as being good. However, almost every change to the words around the mechanics stirred an almost incomprehensible feeling inside me. I had never been so deeply repulsed, and yet so deeply enthralled. 4th Edition may finally be the D&D edition I'm happy with. For all the wrong reasons.

The reason my love for RPGs is so intense is my unique creativity situation. I have what I believe are wonderful ideas, but I have no other method to express them. I'm not gifted in speaking, painting, drawing, writing, any method that could be used to convey an idea, I suck at it. The main reason is the open environment they often have. You're left with a blank, nothing to build off. You create the foundation, the structure, the details. I don't function well in those environments. I work best with limited tools. The D&D game gives me the structured rules and mechanics, so I can get my ideas out.

4th edition gives me the chance to do something I've always wanted to do. I can find a rule system that I'm happy with mechanically, and scrap the rest. I have the mechanical guides to explain however I please. The worse I find the situation surrounding the buildup to 4E, the happier I am. More incentive to work with new fluff. The worse the fluff they release? Less temptation to hold onto and intermix it with the my writing. The less Wizards writes for 3rd? The more I can focus on 4th. My version of it.

3rd edition and 3.5 gave me great tools to teach me the tricks. The basics. With my subscription to Pathfinder, I'm finding something I didn't expect. Not only am I getting great adventures and content, I'm getting shown exactly how to do what I always wanted: how to build a world that leaves all assumptions at the door.

Am I crazy? Am I alone? Am I wrong? Maybe. But I've never been more excited for a product I plan to surgically reconstruct and make into my own horrible gaming abomination.