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Just for the heck of it I pulled up Pathbuilder and did a Gnome with: 14, 14, 15, 12, 12, 15 after racials applied. If you don't want extra skill points or Wis (raging does help with Will saves, obviously) then I'd go with a 10 in one of those and have your CON start at a 16. At level 1 with a Greatsword, for example, when raging you'll be at a +6 to hit and do 1d10+6 damage. That's honestly not bad at all. At level 5, just for example, with a MW weapon you'll be at +11 to hit and do 1d10+6, but since of course you'll be Power Attacking it'll be +9 to hit and 1d10+12 without anything else like Furious Focus, Reckless Abandon (why not go Primalist + Steelblood?), or bloodlines.

I theorycrafted a Halfling Bloodrager and the initial STR hit REALLY isn't a big deal in my opinion. If you're thinking about going Bloodrider, then being small REALLY doesn't matter as much (at least from level 5). You'll have a 1d6 lance with a +4 or +6 damage, but doubled when charging so 2d6 +8/12 (or numbers almost exactly what the medium-sized greatsword wielder would pull), plus whatever modifiers like the above you have, PLUS you'll be hitting with your animal companion.

Would Racial Heritage (Catfolk) work in this case?

Otherwise ask your GM if you can take flaws or two drawbacks to gain an extra feat at 1st level; that might be your best bet.

Unchained introduced that idea and (I believe) Starfinder refined it.

Omdura is a very interesting class, with elements from the Cleric, Inquisitor, and Paladin, but you really have to dive in to find things that make it a reasonable choice.

The real strength of the class is the invocations. They're flexible and their being sacred bonuses (or untyped) is great. The Healing invocation is far better than Channel Energy for out-of-combat healing as well. The downside of invocations, however, is that invocations explicitly don't apply to the Omdura him/herself until level 11(!!!!!!).

The second downside is the dependence on standard actions for a lot of abilities. Divine Weapon is great if you can use it ahead of a fight, but if not then it competes with invocations and spellcasting at lower levels. And since your invocations don't apply to you for the majority of a campaign, Divine Might is nice, but lower uses than a Paladin mean lower utility.

4+Int skill ranks and the list of class skills are pretty good as well.

All in all, it's a weird class that probably requires real thought to ensure you're contributing successfully to the party. If you're not in a high-optimization game, it's actually probably a fantastic choice, since the flexibility helps support the other players and the lack of easy self-buffing (like Fervor or Bane) isn't such an issue.

Somewhere else definitely lists longbows as well; don't remember if it's a Kingmaker guide or one of the Inner Sea guides...

So I'm confused, because the way I read it, School Understanding doesn't give you anything VMC Wizard doesn't already give you, unless you're saying they'll stack to eventually level 40 if you pay the arcane reservoir cost...

It really depends on the game, but having built a few Swashbucklers they rarely have a problem actually hitting, and since a level 3 Swashbuckler already lets you intimidate a Cruel weapon is a solid idea.

avr wrote:

Suppose at 12th level you're going to sorcerer 12 on one side of the gestalt, and technomancer 2 on the other side. Sorcerer 12 is giving you +1 level of arcane spellcasting and so is technomancer 2. This is the same benefit, gestalt gives you the best of the two sides (not the sum) and the gestalt therefore gives you just +1 level of arcane spellcasting. Not +2. Continue this to level 20 and you will have sorcerer 20 spellcasting at level 20, no more, no less.

that is certainly one way to interpret it but Prestige classes seem to be augments calculated after base classes at least in default rulings, which gestalt is not so I'm wondering how this carries so far most are saying doesn't work so that may very well be the case

Exactly, since prestige classes are augments to base classes it doesn't make sense to gestalt a prestige class with the class that the prestige class advances itself. The wording of spellcasters is essentially "as you level up, you gain spells known and spells you can cast per day." However, a spellcasting prestige class says, "When a new arcane trickster/eldritch knight/etc level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she belonged to before adding the prestige class."

So it's exactly as avr said. Both are giving you the same extra benefits as if you gained a level in that same spellcasting class, and thus gestalt only takes the "better" of the two.

That being said, your original idea is missing ten levels anyway.

You could do Sorcerer 10//any other class 10, and then for the last 10 levels do Technomancer 10//any other class 10.

Pretty sure it says the same thing about Animal Companions and Druids, but if you took a Domain or Herbalism, your Druid levels DON'T determine your Animal Companion abilities since they're being used to determine your Domain spells and powers.

Just like how almost no Sp or Su abilities state that they require a standard action to use...since there's only a wording loophole someone seems to have found, and not a specific actual exception that's been found, general trumps not-specific.

This reminds me of a thread I found from 2016 where someone seemed to think you could threaten with pretty much any weapon you had, rather than it being the weapon which threatens...and for some reason no one just said "if you use a reach weapon, by definition you can't use armor spikes for your AoO since they're not even in range of them, so just because the rules say you threaten doesn't mean the weapon has nothing to do with it.

The connection there (apologies, it's a bit early for me) is that your wizard level can't count for a different class' familiar if you traded away the ability for it in the class itself. BTW Tattooed Sorcerer is from 2011's Inner Sea Magic and I only found one Wizard archetype that gives up Arcane Bond that's from the same splatbook in that year. The rest are from a different 2011 book or from later, suggesting there wasn't awareness of potential clashes.

The Horsemaster's Saddle says it grants teamwork feats held by the RIDER, so assuming you have a companion you can at least briefly sit on, you can use Improved Spell Sharing. My fiancée's Druid gets good use out of this with her lion animal companion...

Lelomenia wrote:

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Honestly, if what you were saying is true, then Sorc1/Witch4/DD10--->WitchX builds would be a thing, and they're not.

i would argue the reason you don’t see that build is that it would be incredibly awful.

Just because you don’t see Wiz 1/Witch 1/Sorc 1/Arc 1/Bard 1/etc builds all over the place doesn’t mean there must be a rule against them.

I can think of 1,000 things I'd like to do with a Sorc1/Witch4/DD10 ---> WitchX with the Prehensile Hair Hex, Combat Reflexes, and near-Full Witch Spell progression.

A Hagbound Witch even gets claws at L1 and a size bonus to STR at L2, so you could probably do worse...

I would second the "find a suitable replacement": the Paladin can try to find a way of saying, essentially, "I find that I am unworthy of fully accepting this most gracious gift" to the dragon and finding a way to not make this a potentially grievous faux pas. And the other players can make it clear to the Paladin that they're not willing to go along with a plan that will make an enemy out of a dragon at this point in time. By the way, this kind of endangering of his comrades' safety (not to mention any greater consequences) could absolutely be a violation of the Paladin's code, and if he woke up the next day realizing he can't hear the voice of his deity, that had better give the player the hint that he's missing something.

If the player is also saying, either in character or out, that the lawful good creature isn't...well this is a perfect time to have a session where the players/other characters discuss with the Paladin/his player the virtues/flaws of the dragon and see how the Paladin/player reflects. If the player still doesn't budge, then the players/GM might have to just make a call, but this sounds PERFECT for RP with a Paladin who is conflicted about his moral centering in at least one aspect.

Even without VMC, a Dawnflower Dervish, Arrowsong Minstrel, Arcane Duelist, and Archaelogist pretty much fit without stepping on each others' toes at all. You could even swap the Arcane Duelist out for a Dwarven Scholar and then there's NO duplication of Inspire Courage.

take account of buffing and flexibility.

i had a campaign where the pc made sure to have protection from evil before facing an evil npc bard and his entire selection of spells and most of his abilities were nuffed because of it.

and in another game the big evil npc on the FINAL EPIC BATTLE did not have any way to deal with my warpriest just standing right next to her with silence cast on him. all her spells and get-away movement items needed voice (to cast or activate)... it was the most brutal one sided end-game fight i ever won. (i was as dumbfounded as the gm. he looked up his notes. over and over then goes like "..ok she takes out a dagger and try to stab you...with your 39 ac...")

Daaaaaang that's effective. I'm ABSOLUTELY stealing this for a future battle "against" my Kingmaker party. Silenced Barbarian or Antipaladin charging at the players.

For a better blaster Magus, the Eldritch Sage 3rd-party archetype is one that I think is really interesting and honestly only overpowered in my mind compared to L1-4 full casters. Once you get beyond, you're keeping up with Arcanists or Exploiter Wizards in the mid-levels I suppose and then being absolutely outclassed beyond that. Magi do get good numbers of feats but, at some point, you just need higher spell levels so you can slap metamagic feats on your lower-level spells. The Eldritch Sage lets you use Wand Mastery and the other abilities to drop lots of lower-level spells on foes with higher DCs than otherwise, for making foes fail those saves.

About Armored Battlemage...it's probably suboptimal, but it's a LOT less fiddly, especially for newer players. The real complaint, which I'd absolutely change for home games, is Arcane Pool only working on armor.

And if you VMC into Alchemist, for instance, you get a number of full-power bombs at level 7.

Furthermore, you should be able to stack Scout with Underground Chemist.

Since it says "or" the implication would be that they are not combinable.

Quasi-seconding Rauðúlfur's post above. In the Kingmaker campaign I'm running, the party encountered these crystals with souls/spirits in them underneath one PC's childhood village. TL;DR: when shattered, some of the spirits entered the party's weapons and armor to enhance them (and I just had one PC's axe also 'swallow' up a Belker that it killed last encounter), but one crystal which remained unshattered actually contains the soul of the crystal-trapper-creator dude. And the next time our Wizard (who hasn't crafted anything since this arc) sits down to craft, he'll find that he can transfer enchantments from one item to another similar item (weapon to weapon, armor to armor, ring to ring, etc), or he can break down an enchantment into a reservoir that can be used for later enchantment. So if they don't want to use the +2 warhammer they found, or place the +2 on another item, they can break down the +2 enhancement into 4000gp worth of weapon enhancement-equivalent energy to be used at a later date.

D*mn! That was impressive.

Yep, I'm pretty much always amazed by what Mark brings to this forum...

Although if you're the main party healer, Arsenal Chaplain losing Channel Energy might make things more challenging for you. It's not MUCH, but 1d6/2d6 for the whole party with a single action could be quite meaningful. I found the Proselytizer archetype really interesting, as it adds a lot of very useful spells (Rally Point is great since you can just have each of your party members run through it to get the bonuses on their way to dealing death and destruction, Heroism is Heroism, etc) but also because it really embodies the Warpriest who fights but wears his faith on his sleeve...

Yeah, pathfinder economics is pretty screwed up.

I mean, 2 cp is enough to buy a pound of flour or a chicken, 1 gp buys you a goat, and 3gp buys you a pig. While in the olden days killing and plucking a chicken was actually quite the ordeal, let's compare that amount to, for instance, the good ol' Cure Light Wounds wand, at 750gp. So, for the equivalent of removing an average of 275 hp of damage, you could instead obtain:

250 pigs,

375 sheep,

750 goats,

75 cows, or...

37,500 chickens.

In some ways, the economics obviously resembles medieval societies where in many cases it was local or regional authorities which set prices, but even so it seems absolutely absurd that there's such disparity between magic item costs (despite them being so widely available) and mundane item costs. I envision a California-Gold-Rush scenario, where the prices of most mundane goods get driven into the stratosphere because adventurers have the gold to spend on all these fancy things, they can afford a gold for a chicken.

I just tried to do some searching to make sure I wasn't mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that, historically, there was no such thing as a composite longbow. In fact, the whole point of a composite bow was actually to essentially do the same amount of damage as a longbow with a smaller/easier-in-certain-respects construction. It doesn't actually make it easier to fire a bow if it's a compound bow, since a bow can only store energy that you've put into it through the drawing of the bowstring.

P.S.: My quick perusing of Wikipedia brought me to cable-backed bows, which I thought was interesting. Some of those seem to be longbow-sized, but since the wood itself used is apparently weaker than woods such as yew (which was the traditional English longbow wood) it's a composite longbow of sorts that isn't actually stronger than a traditional self-bow like the longbow. But it also looks like the wrappings around swords like Amiri's...would belts or cables around a chipped sword prevent it from further damage?

I created Elves who are fleeing the Pitax/Drelev incursion into the west, who set up shop at the old ruined Elven tower in the west. Led by a super old Spirit Guide Oracle with the Nature Mystery, supported by an Armored Battlemage Magus and a few Eldritch Archers. I had Jhod Kavken be the emissary between the barony and the Elves, but our Baron upon taking Leadership requested I whip up an Elven Cleric of Desna to come to the barony (I made her a Twilight Speaker Skald, but it's not like he'd entirely know).

I had Kesten Garess be this sullen but quietly ambitious person (he reveals himself on the rare occasions that he drinks) who wants to regain his title as heir to his house. Since Book 1 mentions an abandoned mine and a potentially exploitable mine, he organized some dwarves to come from Brunderton to prospect (with him running any viable mines, of course) and eventually he's going to stir up some conflict...

But yeah, I ended up introducing a whole rogues' gallery of NPCs, starting with Thomson, one of the Stag Lord's bandits who changed allegiance. My plan is for him to become a Beastmaster and unwittingly raise the numerous magical creatures that the party has come across.

Half-elf has two different racial traits that would be advantageous for your build. Adaptability is exactly the same as Eclectic, but then you get other abilities which, combined with Skill Focus et al might be worth more than the extra skill point for being Human.

Multidisciplined gives up the equivalent of Eclectic (but you can take that as a Half-elf anyway) but you get back a caster level in both classes.

avr wrote:

No, I got you. It's just the flavour oddness. This is who you're going to worship:

** spoiler omitted **
As I said, the mechanics of what you're doing here check out.

To be fair, I could see a low cha character wishing to worship such a deity. The character is going through life being repulsed by everyone they meet, except members of this church who offer them praise and pleasure.

There's nothing to say that such a character may even attempt to compliment others but their words just come out wrong.

"oy! your boils really bring out the puss in yer eyes. You're lovelier then ah slug on a rainy day. Wanna come back to my place? I ken show ye some scabs the likes of which ye never seen"

That sounds like a perfect Goblin or 5 Cha Dwarf idea...

The tricky part of that is that a Divine Paragon of Arshea will only get that ability at level 11.

The Sacred Attendant Cleric Archetype was practically purpose built for Arshea, and gets dodge bonuses to AC as you level up if you're unarmored/unencumbered.

I had the idea of a UMonk 1/Sacred Attendant X of Arshea: Essentially someone who tried to let go of all worldly attachments, but was always just a little too tempted by the pleasures of the flesh. But upon realizing there was a deity who encouraged her followers to exult in these pleasures, he dove right into these practices.

Honestly, you're looking at minimum 17 AC from level 2 (first level of Sacred Attendant, and it'll keep going up), and taking Crane Style and other things to boost defensive-fighting prowess only sends that up...and if you've got a spellcaster who can cast Mage Armor on yourself, hoo boy. I suppose Samsaran still works here for Mirror Image as well.

15-point buy is tricky to pull off both the flavor and stats (although a 7-CHA devotee of Arshea could be "that guy who is TOO proud of his conquests") but it's something I very much considered going with for a future character.

I think the idea is that it's pretty much the truly fervent, not just faithful, who specifically wield their deities' weapons. Consider that an Adept doesn't get any weapon proficiencies, so you'd then assume they'd be wielding a sling, crossbow, cudgel, staff, or spear.

Yeah, that's quite possibly a super easy path to cheese. Titan Mauler is somewhat suboptimal, but if the character's strength is high enough then it won't miss that often and so all you're seeing are massive weapons with massive damage.

JiaYou wrote:

It's not EXACTLY synergistic, but I'd argue a Cleric of Pulura (very similar to Desna) works very well thematically to go into the Stargazer PrC. Honestly I can't figure out how Stargazer ISN'T a straight upgrade from Cleric:

Thats the point.... it is a straight upgrade... hence why it got the PFS banned bat!

In fairness due to the high crapness of the Pulura domains, I would mostly only recommend it as a PrC if you have a single domain Cleric archetype

Wow, I never actually noticed that some prestige classes aren't PFS-legal...

Obviously your DM can tailor the game, but anything that can summon as a standard action is strong. Occultist Arcanist hasn't been mentioned yet. It's weak physically but the idea is that you use your summons to tank and do damage while you can focus on utility spells, battlefield control, etc.

Monster Tactician gets you a stronger chassis and skill points. Technically if you go with the Chivalry Inquisition you can also start with an animal companion like an Axe Beak.

Druid with an animal companion is also a great choice and what my girlfriend chose when I did a solo module to introduce her to D&D/PF.

Invoker seems to me to be a better choice since Hagbound loses the first three hexes so you're not picking up any until level 6. Invoker just makes you wait until level 2 to pick up a hex.

Grenadier Alchemist would be a great choice. An Eldritch Archer Magus could also be interesting (both are archetypes I'd like to try).

It's not EXACTLY synergistic, but I'd argue a Cleric of Pulura (very similar to Desna) works very well thematically to go into the Stargazer PrC. Honestly I can't figure out how Stargazer ISN'T a straight upgrade from Cleric:

Keeps full casting progression, gives a familiar, several Witch hexes, an extra (sub)domain, two Oracle Revelations, and many of the Sidereal Arcana are quite nice (and one keeps your channel progression going, which is LITERALLY the only thing the Stargazer doesn't do by default). Oh and two extra skill points per level.

I was tempted to encourage my Kingmaker game's Cleric of Desna to take this PrC (I'd just handwave the deity requirement since it's very similar) but I don't know if I want him to have that big a power bump :D

Doesn't going Warpriest and choosing natural weapons as your Focus Weapon solve pretty much all these problems?

Perhaps since the prestige class was created before the actual Arcanist, it feels like the Initiate archetype gives you more than the prestige class does.

I'd comment that such an archery build is not going to be very effective I'd think.

For a support type I've really wanted to try the Varisian Pilgrim archetype. Abadar doesn't work well for it but if you chose someone with Luck or Trickery you can now use your domain powers on them at range. If you chose Shelyn for Protection/Defense and Luck, for instance, you could get Weapon Finesse so you can have a Bladed Brush build to use your Dex for damage, reach to force AoOs, and then use your standard actions for spells and domain powers.

Summoner is strong but yeah, even a "weak" druid should be stronger than an Alchemist in the end and at worst equal to the Summoner.

I'd say there's no downside to Magus (3/4 BAB is honestly more or less an illusion when you can enhance your weapon at level 1 with a +1 enhancement, +2 at level 5, etc).

Gloomblade Fighter would work as a way to "summon" an instrument (as long as you can say you are "proficient" with the guitar it's fine) and you'd only need a one level dip to make it work.

If your GM doesn't have a problem with it, just take the Extra Rogue Talent feat to get Trapfinding as well.

If you can retrain or just make it all line up with GM permission, then Inspired Blade Swashbuckler at level 1 gives you Weapon Focus and then you can take Dazzling Display off the bat (most people do Fencing Grace if they want to participate in combat since it gives Dex to damage instead of Str), and then at Bard Level 2 (character level 3) you can get both your second feat and even Extra Rogue Talent if you really wanted.

It really depends on what the campaign is and what the other characters are.

EDIT: Yeah I missed that you'd be as if you're a 4th level Warpriest...pretty sure there's a better use of your feat regardless.

It scales up as you level up. It's a d6 until I think level 4, and then a d8 until level 10. So figure out how many fighter levels you have and that tells you your Warpriest level for Sacred Weapon.

Definitely simultaneous. And the interesting thing about this is that heals heal the same amount of both nonlethal and lethal, so you'll probably heal all the nonlethal you do as well no matter what.

I've got 9 & 11 year-old daughters. They've done a handful of short sessions and are 2nd level. I want to design an adventure with unicorns in it because they will love that.

Any plot ideas? My first thought was orcs "kidnapping" unicorns.

Horns of the Hunted is sort of a plug-in for Kingmaker but can absolutely be run as a standalone adventure. It's written for higher-level characters but that's easy enough to tweak. Has Forlarrens in it, who when they kill or incapacitate someone start breaking down and crying out of remorse, which is thematically kinda nice...

Arcane-bloodline Bloodragers get every one of the things you listed except for the Perform aspect, but that you could just fluff.

Dervish Dance/Dawnflower Dervish Bard also works. You don't HAVE to use a scimitar, so just enjoy the extra buffs and swing away with that axe.

My comments will probably depend on how you want the encounter to go down. For instance, if you're looking to truly give the thieves a completely fair chance, then this sounds mostly right, although the gear these NPCs are carrying is higher than average.

Are you looking for the guards to react as quickly as possible to a threat? For instance, instead of Shield Focus or Cosmopolitan, perhaps Quick Draw for at least one of the guards?

Clearly it's an intense campaign, since you already leveled up after one session! Why are healing options challenging for the party, I think it would be worth asking. Because I'm not clear what this build does for the party that your previous character didn't already do, and I don't want to make presumptions based on incomplete information.

This is what I see:

You already had a mainly prepared caster (Warpriest) who should at least be able to read scrolls and use items to remove status afflictions and has the ability to spontaneously cast heals and heal others with Fervor. Your archery should also have been putting out QUITE a lot of damage, especially since you could self-buff with swift actions.

Your new chassis is also at least a bit below the original one in damage output, and unless you're going to sink your known spells into status removal and the like I'm not clear how, other than channeling (which would be for 4d6 or 14 average HP in the middle of combat), you're providing "good" healing options.

Not criticizing; I think Half-Orc Warpriest Archers are EXCELLENT, which is why I'd like clarification on why you think your choice is actually suboptimal, and why in fact it's not your fellow players who should be thinking about the change.

Archer Inquisitor could take the Ravener Hunter Archetype. The Wood Bond Oracle Revelation gives you a bonus to attacks with weapons made substantially of wood. Bows fit that description, so you just got a huge accuracy bonus.

^-This. The sphere does damage when it enters another creature's space, and it ends its movement entirely when it enters that space. I THINK multiple creatures INSIDE a single 5-foot square (such as Tiny and below creatures) all receive damage, but don't quote me on that.

I'd flip the way of looking at this somewhat. "Utilizes the weapon only" shouldn't focus on the type of maneuver itself, but whether it's the weapon *actually* doing the maneuver. For instance, you can absolutely trip someone with a leg sweep, but it's now not a weapon (although I'd now expect someone to pipe up with +1 Dueling handwraps/footwraps to counter this). At whip range, you physically cannot be using anything other than the weapon to accomplish the task. Contrast that with Bull Rush, Overrun, and (normally) Grapple, where it's generally impossible to do the maneuver without using your body. Since Greater Whip Mastery gives a specific way to grapple that overrides a general grapple rule/guideline, I'd definitely argue that you are interpreting the combination of these rules correctly.

If he still is hesitant, bring up that Hydraulic Push/Torrent suddenly makes water able to perform bull rushes, despite nothing in the general descriptions of water mentioning this ability :D

So "laid-back game" can mean "anything goes because whatever" but it can also mean "let's just keep this simple." We've got an OP that wants to have an altered Hunter companion, magic firearms, and oh yeah he's a dragonborn with wings essentially. I can completely understand this character not being accepted, although removing the PLAYER just because of a character that's out of bounds would be pretty bad form.