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Dimensional Steps (Sp)

At 8th level, you can use this ability to teleport up to 30 feet per wizard level per day as a standard action. This teleportation must be used in 5-foot increments and such movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You can bring other willing creatures with you, but you must expend an equal amount of distance for each additional creature brought with you.

Most abilities, such as Shift, say that the effect is "like" a certain other spell, usually Dimension Door, which gives you an idea of the nittier details of how they work. This one gives none, and none of the threads about it that I've found seem to ask anything but the obvious.

What I want to know is the more circumstantial details. For example, can you teleport to a place you don't see? Such as on the other side of a door? Dimension Door allows it, but Shift (Teleportation subschool) specifically says you need to see. Dimensional steps doesn't say you need line of sight. But it also doesn't say that you can go somewhere you don't see. Nor provide any guideline as to what to do if that space is occupied. Do I need to have seen a room to teleport to it? Or say I've got a picture of a room and it's within reach, can I teleport to it without knowing in what direction it lies? Does it end your turn when you use it?

Does anyone have an app, or website, or spreadsheet to recommend for homebrewing monsters?

Those I tried have been buggy, and few are for PF.

I want something that's fairly simple (though long to code, I would reckon). I want to be able to able to input a creature's type, HD, size, ability scores, namely, and it automatically give me what are its HP, saves, attack bonus, feat #, skill points, base type abilities, etc.

I can and have done it all manually in the past, but I like to homebrew my creatures a lot and would be delighted if there were tools to save the time of cross-referencing a bunch of tables and entries.

Looking for advice for making a character with strong memetic potential while also being actually viable in combat. Want to have many good laughs, but since combat is typically a very large chunk of our games I don't want to be worthless at that.

The base inspiration was a challenge we came upon about making a character with a happy background. Our group has quite a tendency to roleplay sad backgrounds, with orphans being common, and slavery and such, and I tend to make even grimmer backgrounds than most. When I GM, my world stands out by being much more gritty and dark than the rest.

So I'm looking at good laughs while doing something different. The Happy Character.

My character lived a happy life as a farmer. Nothing bad or sad happened in his life, he had a (relatively) prosperous farm, a loving wife, many kids. But now, he's getting old. Too old. He decides that it's time to pass on the farm to his kids, and wants to leave his fields to see the world before he dies of old age. He decides that magic could be a boon in this endeavor, as it can greatly help travel vast distances despite his failing body. He studies it, and becomes a lvl 2 wizard, specializing in conjuration (teleportation). Opposition schools are evocation and necromancy, probably. He doesn't like hurting others, he's neutral good, kind of a pacifist, but he'll use various control spells to help his party, like Wall spells. Let's call him... Forest Trump.

Forest is actually a goblin (seems like the most viable short-lived race), meaning he gets to be of venerable age at 40, and thus rant off at people about how things were "back when I was a kid" that would likely cover stuff that happened when normal young(er) adults also lived. Maybe he talks like Yoda (though honestly, I might have a hard time mixing that with the stereotypical "when I was your age!" banter). He's either got an arcane bond with a walking stick, or a livestock familiar. Maybe he was a rabbit breeder, and he kept his favorite hare as familiar? If he had a small-sized familiar, like a goat, he could cast reduce person on himself and ride it. Otherwise he could just buy a cow and ride that. Many possibilities. He also "learned magic" from one of our party members, whom he encountered as he had passed through the farm. His sensei, however, is no actual wizard, but rather a "fake wizard", a fighter who uses tricks to make it look like he's casting magic. Forest doesn't actually have any knowledge (arcana ranks), nor even spellcraft ranks (DM will let me use Lingustics for anything spell-book related). Nobody knows how it works, but it just does. The fake wizard scribbles stuff in Forest's spellbook, and he manages to use it to cast actual spells from it. Don't ask him to explain anything he does, though, or identify any magic. "I'm but a simple farmer, this is the first time I've seen this in my life!"

Now, venerable age grants some pretty hefty penalties. +3 to all mental stats, -6 to all physical stats. Ouch. Goblin also gets a -2 racial to str, +4 dex, 2 cha. That +4 to dex is appreciated, but otherwise, yikes. Starting with 1000 gold and 25 point buy.

That doesn't really allow much in terms of negating the age penalties, be it by buying gear, or spells, or such. Some items will help with his carrying capacity, though, which will probably really need it. Otherwise, paying for a strong animal and a cart is a cheaper fix.

So I'm thinking of an array of the likes of this:

Ability - base - after adjustments - (cost)
Str - 10 - 2 - (0)
Dex - 14 - 12 - (5)
Con - 14 - 8 - (5)
Int - 17 - 20 - (13)
Wis - 11 - 14 - (1)
Cha - 11 - 14 - (1)

Looking for ideas/suggestions with the array, feats, items, spells, etc., to pick for the start or short term to help make this little guy viable.

I looked at threads for old characters, and from the looks of it, basically, there's nothing special to do (yet). Age Resistance is too high-level a spell, the Mantle of Immortality is too expensive. Muleback Cords would cost me my whole starting gold. I do have access to spells like Ant Haul, though, but that wouldn't last all day. I could prepare it multiple times or take Extend Spell. But again, if I have an animal to carry stuff, and a masterwork backpack, I can still carry a light load with 10lb. As a wizard, I don't need armor, or weapons, or much that would normally weigh much. Just means I can't stash a lot of potions or scrolls on me, though. Doesn't sound like I need much investment to cast from atop a mount, either. And if I want a small mount, Reduce Person can't bring my strength below 1. Alternatively, I can cast Enlarge Person on the familiar thanks to Share Spell. Maybe even make it permanent. For normal mounts, Goblin dogs are fast, otherwise rams and such could make good options. I don't think I saw any penalties for riding mounts that are two size categories larger than oneself, either? Other than not being able to fast mount it? Actually, I don't even see anything about the minimum size a mount needs to be, either... where's that? If I decide to mount my familiar in combat, he could charge to deliver touch attacks without my crazy strength penalty, but... I don't think a wizard charging into melee on top of his familiar is a very smart thing to do, especially with those physical stats. XD Doesn't really fit with the pacifist theme either.

Any suggestions to help make this old man more fun/funny/competent is appreciated! :P

I wonder if anyone's attempted it?

I GM pathfinder every second week with friends, I have all the Ultimate Campaign rules (which are also on the SRDs anyways), and I'm looking for a game to play with the wife. She's not as much of a gamer as I, though, so competitive games... tend not to end too well.

I was wondering if anyone had already attempted to recycle those kingdom building rules to be able to play "among peers", if you will (without an GM or authoritative figure). Roll charts for what the NPC kingdoms do and all.

I haven't actually used those rules yet, so I'll need to familiarize myself more with them. But I was wondering if others thought it would be possible to play with two players, either in one nation or as allied nations, to grow and achieve an objective (ex: conquer the continent), Civ-style.

Alternatively, if you know other (non-expensive) 2 player cooperative games (for casuals), that'd also be appreciated. ;)

The rules for starvation are, for the most part, straightforward.

But realistically-speaking, when people start to go low on food, they usually start rationing their food to make it last as long as possible.

So... are there any rules for this? It came up in our game last night, and I hadn't really thought about it beforehand, so I couldn't really figure out the best way to handle it. It ended up not being an issue this time, but it might very well come up again later.

In my homebrew world, I've decided to use the Wild Magic planar trait for the Material Plane, which can be seen here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/the-planes#TOC-Magic-Trai ts

My question, which would also apply to other planar magic traits, is if there is any ruling on how this affects crafting magic items? Say someone wants to brew a potion of cure light wounds, or craft a wand of magic missile, or anything of the like? Would a dead magic plane prevent those altogether? For wild magic, would it incur possible random effects at creation, or upon use? Or both? Any impact on creation cost or time?

I'm more than willing to homebrew myself a solution (as I homebrewed my old wild magic mishap table), but I was looking for something to base myself upon to help me decide how to proceed.

RAW: "Choose a school of magic you already have Spell Focus in. The bonus to save DCs provided by Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus for that school increases by 1. You can expend one use of mythic power as part of casting a spell from your chosen school to force any of the spell's targets to roll their saving throws twice, taking the lower result."

I used a mythic point to force my target to roll twice upon casting hold person on him.

The DM and I aren't really sure as to how this is supposed to work. Does the effect only work on the will save to resist the spell, or also on subsequent saves to end the spell's effect?

I'd like to run a game where kingdom building is not a sideline, but the entire focus of the game, essentially turning pathfinder into a turn-based strategy that can easily be played by email. I've read up on the rules found in Ultimate Campaign and was very interested in the potential. However, I was wondering how balanced these rules were, and if they worked smoothly? For example, is there some broken strategies or buildings that are vastly superior to everything else without any drawbacks (such as high prices)? Do 5 100 men armies handle a single 500 men army in a reasonnable manner?

So for those who have used the material in Ultimate Campaign, what are your thoughts?

I'm starting to think of my next character build, and some of the rules seemed a little fuzzy.

What I was thinking of was making a cavalier (Beast Rider archetype) that would, at lvl 12, take up a wyvern with the leadership feat, and have the wyvern gain the mount special abilities. But how would the wyvern increase in power as I level up?

A wyvern has an ECL of 10, which is also the same as the ECL of a Dragonne. While looking on this topic in the threads, I found that there was apparently rules provided for the Dragonne as a special mount (I don't have the extra bestiaries, so I can't read the full text myself). What I found said the following: "In "Dragonnes as Mounts" it says a character with the leadership feat can take the Dragonne as a mount using the animal companion rules. They have to have an effective Druid lev (EDL) of 10. The EDL countes as 4 levels lower for determining the abilities and statistics of the Dragonne. Taking the Dragonne in this way counts as the character Cohort."

Now, a cavalier's mount ability scales as fast as the druid, so once I hit level 12 I'd have all the requirements for it (>10 equivalent druid level and being level ECL+2 as per leadership). Then, the wyvern would have the stats of an animal companion of a druid level 8. Perhaps non-incidently, that would give it just as much HD as a wyvern typically has.

But how does it advance? The progression chart, I believe, is for animals. Dragons advance differently, with a better BAB and the like. Am I correct in understanding that I should replace all of the animal BAB and saves progression with those of a dragon?

And then, when I level up, what happens? When I reach level 13, I'll have an equivalent druid level of 9 for the purpose of this mount, which means a new hit dice. Will this be a hit dice of dragon? Does he gain a level in a PC class as he would as a cohort? Does he gain both? Does he only gain PC levels when he doesn't gain dragon HD?

I also know a lot of animal companions increase in size after a few levels. Would the wyvern also do this, or would it be considered as if it had already gained this (or, to the same effect, would it simply not apply to him), meaning he will stay Large forever?

So how would the wyvern cohort/mount progress? And would the Young template lower its ECL, thus allowing it to become accessible a few levels earlier to small cavaliers? Thanks.