K's page

Here are the things it seems to want to do:

Cast Spells and Melee at the same time.
He doesn't get any real ability to avoid the Concentration checks he needs to be avoiding for being in melee, meaning most rounds he is just going to be doing poor melee attacks while wasting spell slots. This problem never goes away.

Cast spells through his weapon
Ok, it is objectively worse to cast a spell through Spellstrike and use Spell Combat on the same round than it is to attack one round and cast a touch spell on another round. You are exchanging the extremely easy Touch Attack of the spell for a weapon attack that is not only against armor of various sorts, but for the vast majority of your career is also going to come with a substantial penalty. Chances are high that you are going to waste the spell AND miss on your melee attacks which is the worst of both worlds.

Use Magus Abilities
He burns spell slots to power abilities equivalent to 1st or 2nd level spells, but he doesn't have a lot of spell slots, so he is going to burn through his spells extremely fast.

This means a lot of players are going to burn through their spells powering puny Magus powers when they could be contributing to the combat by casting their low DC spells (because hey, your Int is just one not one of the three stats you need for melee, so chances are good it's low AND you are using lower level spells than everyone else).

His best Magus stuff is also extremely weak, like the Spell Reflection ability that costs slots, works on less then half the spells that might be cast on you, and might not come up at all if you face something even near your level because a single classed spellcaster has such better spell levels. The things it does work on, you don't care about at level 15.

Melee well as a spellcaster
His spell list doesn't have good spells for melee spellcasting or buffs for melee guys. Single-classed Wizards are going to be able to out-melee this guy, and they also get to be single-classed Wizards with better and more spells that can just be Metamagiced.

I mean, can you at least put Blink on his list?

Melee well as a melee guy
Now, there are a mountain of abilities on the Magus that make you want top stab things with a sword and cast spells, but your real route to power is going to be using a shapechanging spells and attacking that way.... except you lack the support spells to do that effectively like other spellcasters can.

You aren't even expected to use a shield, even though being a single weapon fighter without a shield is terrible. I mean, dual-wielding is awesome for Rogues because they get Sneak damage, and two handed fighting is awesome because you get mountains of damage with all your feats put that way.... but the magic just is bad a hitting people with weapons.

Cast Spells well as a spellcaster
You have a lowish INT because you need STR, Dex, and CON to survive melee combat. Your spells are lower level than what characters of your level are supposed to have, meaning mobs you are supposed to be fighting have high saves against your spells. Your feats are focused on combat stuff and not spellcaster stuff.

So basically the entire swath of your spell list devoted to combat control is wasted because you are really bad at it.

You do get some no saves spells eventually, but it's too little too late and it's easily outclassed by what you are facing at those levels.

Get abilities that mitigate the mixing of melee and spellcasting.
What can I say? After you blow feats on being good at melee, you are bad at spellcasting, and it's the same situation if you reverse your investment. It doesn't even help that you are bad at spellcasting for your level with lagging DCs from using spells which are not level appropriate AND your low-ish INT since you needed to have a decent STR, DEX, and CON to survive in combat.

Be partially freed from Equipment
Arcane Weapon is nice because it is like a free magic weapon added to your character.... except that as a melee guy you also need magic armor, maybe a magic shield, several kinds of stat enhancers and armor enhancers, and spellcaster-focused items like Metamagic rods. Basically you need twice the number of magic items that anyone else in your party needs.

Heck, you even still need a Magic weapon so you can abuse Arcane Weapon.

Not have weird synergies
Anyone else notice that the Arcane Weapon ability is designed so that the Magus can get an extra abilities onto weapons, breaking both the normal limits on max abilities on magic weapons and Wealth by Level?

Have a flavorful capstone ability.
Seriously, what? A +2 and finally getting to do what you've been trying to do at 2nd level but failing at?

Seriously, you could get this at 5th level and no one would notice.

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That being said, he should be doing fine in levels 1-8 when even a Commoner can be a decent melee combatant at those levels using Pathfinder's combat-focused feats and level-appropriate magic equipment. By level 11, he's so far from being what a real spellcaster or fighting guy could be doing that he might as well be your cohort's cohort.

I love the art, though. That artist is awesome.

Sometimes, I don't think people realize how powerful a Wizard is. So here is a thread for people to put their best tactics for Wizards, as well as sample situations to use them.

1. Animate Dead, and other summons.
The ideal Wizard is a Neutral guy who is willing to make his most dangerous monster enemies into skeletons and zombies. This provides for a handy meatshield in combats that you rarely have to worry about healing (unlike a Fighter, who often soaks up healing like a bag of sponges).

At higher levels, planar binding is used to pull demons and other high value monsters from their planes to be used as ideal zombie fodder.

Other summons make ideal trap finding tools(they step on traps and explode, thus revealing said trap), couriers, meatshields when massed, chaff to absorb atacks, grapplers, or special ability users.

2. The ability to leave.
Having a tough combat? The Wizard has a number of ways to leave combats, from Teleport to Dimension Door, but in a "Fight Club" situation like duels, the Wizard can merely cast Magnificient Mansion and take a 5' step in for perfect protection from harm while he casts summons, buff spells, and drinks potions. Even spells like Resilient Sphere last long enough for that necessary breathing room in a hectic combat.

3. Contingency
Often, this spell is overlooked and is used a way to slap a quick buff onto the Wizard in an emergency; however, the spell is much more.

One of the easiest solutions is to set a spell that controls the battlefield in some way so that enemies can't harm him. Popping a Resilient Sphere on yourself is an easy way to avoid powerful attacks for a round while you cast buffs or summons.

So now we take these three tactics and do a sample situation: a duel between a Fighter and a Wizard.

Round 1: Someone wins initiative, but it doesn't matter because the Fighter gets delayed by a spell out of the Wizard's Contingency....maybe a Wall of some sort. The Wizard's Balor Skeleton attacks the Fighter, and the Wizard casts Magnificient Mansion and takes a 5' step in and is now immune to attack.

Round 2+: Wizard casts various summons, buffs, and then sends them after the Fighter, all from the perfect protection of the Magnificient Mansion. Potentially, they can step out for a round or two to cast debuffing and battlefield control spells under the cover of buffs like Improved Invisibility and Blink.

Conclusion: Winner is the Wizard!

Ok, so I was poking around Amazon.com and I saw that Rise of the Runelords: #1 is being listed for $1000 both used and new.

Soooo, what's up with that? Is it a collector's item?

We have some bad ju-ju going down in the Making Rogues Not Fighters Anymore thread.

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/feedback/alpha2/racesClasses/makingRoguesNotFightersAnymore

Can we get an official to call for the "cool down."

So, we all know that Bonded Objects are enchanted at half the normal cost. For example, this means that a Wizard or Sorcerer can enchant an item he'd buy for 120,000 not for 60,000, but for 30,000. He could then sell the item, and a week later create a new bonded object for 200 gold per level.

So if a 12th level Wizard made a Ring worth 120,00 if he bought it, he'd spend 30K instead of 60K(normal enchanting cost), resell it for 60K, spend 2.4K for a new object, and then pocket 27,800 gp profit.

If he got the right feats (Skill Focus and the like), he could just make the Spellcraft rolls on the weeks he didn't have an object.

Here's the idea:

Magic items resell for their value. Magic items are created at the same value.

Basically, the reasoning is that DMs calculate the amount of treasure to give to people in an adventure. The fact that some of that treasure is being sold at half price means that the DM has to adjust the next adventure to have more or less treasure because he can't know what the PCs will sell f keep.

I mean, gems and the like sell for full value....what makes magic items less valuable so that the reseller needs a special discount.

Essentially, making everything bought and sold at full value just means that you won't have item crafters with twice the amount of magical equipment that they should have and all PCs always have te right amount of wealth.

All of the [polymorph] spells require a piece of the creature you want to turn into as an M component. This means that to get the good forms you need Eschew Material Component or a very nice DM.

So, in the base system you lose PrCs and feats if some prerequisite is lost.

Basically that's dumb. Its mechanical and without flavor.

I don't really mind Ex-Assasins who are good. I do understand that some classes and PrCs have rules about what alignments you can be or other actions that can't be taken, but I see those as needed a "trade-in mechanic" (like clerics pick a new god for their new alignment, or paladins trade for blackguard or fighter levels).

Tragic heroes that used to be evil is prime fantasy stuff. Why should mechanics get in the way?

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to ever fight a dragon smaller than Huge.

Huge Dragons should be young adults, and they should just get bigger from there.

And please, I don't need rules for baby-killing. Wyrmling and young stats are just unnecessary, and a little gross.

Thanks.

It needs to be made clear that Spellcraft won't let you learn spell you can't cast.

The wording is poor enough that you can argue its possible to learn spells from other classes, spells of a higher level than you can cast, and spells not normally on your list but on someone's Sorcerer or Wizard list (Dragons and Nagas both have these).

Its a single line of text, but it would save a lot of arguments (and with the Bonded Object power, some abuse).

Here's the suggestion:

At every even level (when they gain a spell level), give the Sorc a choice of a new Spell Known from the bloodline list OR a Transformation. That way a Sorc who gained his powers from a pact with a Fey Prince is different from someone whose dad got freaky with a Nymph, and is different from someone who got his power by being born in a Fey Glade.

It can work for all concepts. For example, the Destined Sorcerer might gain luck bonuses to different things or "behind the curtain" powers like Fortification or the ability to ignore miss chances as his Transformational aspect, but gain spells like true strike(1st), misdirection(2nd), heroism(3rd), charm monster(4th), contact other plane(5th), transformation(6th), limited wish(7th), mind blank(8th), foresight(9th).

The level 20 power can still be just a Transformation.

PS. The reason to get a spell at every new spell level is because Sorcs have a huge incentive to PrC into something that gives them a new spell every time they gain a new level so that they have a choice of two spells to cast with their best spell level.

Ok, we all know what Scry and Die is: the PCs scry out the villain, cast a crap-ton of buffs, then teleport in while the villain is in the bath.

Various adventures take care of this problem in various ways, but here is a solution I really like.

Make Scry and Teleport fail when you try to go underground. They can still work if you have specially prepared magic circles (Spellcraft) that you have prepared (but, of course, unless you've been there you couldn't know that a magic circle was in that exact spot).

This means that there will be an in-game reason for people to make dungeons. Dungeons, despite the costs of excavation, will be the only nonmagical way to prevent Scrying and Teleporting so lots of heroes and villains will have a reason to live-in and build dungeons.

I like this because it solves a mechanical and a story problem.

I was just wondering why Sorcerers are paying more to create items? I see the reasoning behind Bards having higher costs since they get spells at lower spell levels, but why Sorcerers?

So, with the new feats Sorcerers get and Pathfinder's accelerated feat gain, Sorcerers are now natural PrCers.

For example, lets look at the Loremaster. Normally, it'd be hard to get the feats needed to take it as your 7th level, but if you take your 1st level Bloodline feat as a bloodline's Skill Focus(Knowledge[whatever]) and the 5th as the bloodline's metamagic (of which every bloodline has one), you only need two of your three other feats to be metamagic to meet the feat requires. If you are human, you'd still have two free feats.

The Infernal Bloodline's 9th level power(Hellfire) doesn't actually say how many times per day it can be used. I assume its once per day like the rest of the 9th level Bloodline powers.

The new group of spells actually makes shapechanging into something people won't do anymore (though they did it rarely before). Here are the reasons:

1. No meaningful natural armor gained. Considering that the rules are silent regarding what happens to your real armor, this means that any spellcaster who tries to turn into a monster to fight is going to die quickly.

However, Druids are still the best shapechangers because they can use Wild magic Dragonscale Full Plate.

2. All the fun of dumpster diving with none of the choices.
We now have a dozen spells that don't actually give you any range of choices, but you still have to search through books to find a form with one of the few available powers.

Looks like Sorcerers just took another hit.

3. Everything is an enhancement bonus: Characters will already have enhancement bonuses, so additions from shapechanging magic are either minor bonuses or ineffective because they won't stack.

4. Flavorful things gone: People who dabble in dark pacts can't turn into demons, metal mages can't become golems, and necromancers can't become undead beasts. Not cool.

Ok, lots of flavor changes here. Unfortunately, substantial mechanical problems are unchanged:

-Sorcerer Tax: Sorcerer still get spells a level late for no reason. It wouldn't even be hard to make it backwards compatible in old adventures since you'd take a Sorcerer and just drop his level by one. Just remove the 2nd level from the game. Getting spells at the same rate as a Wizard or Cleric is not unreasonable, considering the power of both.

-Still No Reason to Stop PrCing Out: The abilities are very flavorful, they they don't actually make you win encounters and there are still problems that are only addressed in PrCing like:

-Need a bonus known spell when you gain a spell level. Its a cruel joke to let a spontaneous caster get his choice of one spell to cast with his new level of slots.

-Need some ability to use metamagic. Sorcerers still have no reason to take metmagic.

-Bloodline abilities are not equivalent to spells gained at that level (which is the standard that Wizards and Clerics use in (Pathfinder), or even increase your spellcasting ability in any way (we don't count an extra check vs. SR once a day). The Arcane Bloodline almost does this, but its laughable that they get normal metamagic use at 20th level. The Universalist Wizard still mocks him. A lot.

Some new flaws have been introduced:

Bonus Feats a joke: Diehard...Endurance...Iron Will. These are the feats that make people laugh when they see it on a character sheet. I think that each Bloodline has maybe two feats that would work with a specific build. In short, free junk is still junk.

In short, while the Wizard has received substantial boosts in ability to use his spells, the Sorcerer is still PrCing out as soon as possible. Each bloodline is basically worth a single casting of a shapechanging spell.

Here's a simple proof of concept of the Conjurer as best adventurer.

Human Conjurer
+2 Int, Weapon Proficiency: Lance
Point buy system

1st level:
Feats: Combat Expertise, Armor Proficiency (Medium)
AC: 15-25

We'll assume that he puts the +2 stat into Int because he's a wizard and not a moron. Depending on your build, we'll assume a Dex 16 and Int 20, and the rest into Con (Str, Wis and Cha are dump stats).

This means we're looking at an AC of anywhere from 15 to 24-25. We have a +2 for the Conjurer, +3 for Dex, and on any round where we get a AoO he's getting a +5. He can also wear Scale mail or Chain Mail since in the later part of any adventure since his spell-like acid dart doesn't check ASF.

Note that the warrior types at this level don't have this kind of AC.

5th level
9K wealth
Feats:
2: Open
4: Arcane Armor Training
AC: 23-28

In general, with 9K recommended treasure rolling around in your pocket, you just afford a mithral breastplate +1(7K) and a +1 natural armor amulet(2K) a little into your adventures. Its OK to not be proficient in the armor use, since the armor check penalty is -1 for a mithral breastplate and you aren't doing a lot of attacks that aren't touch attacks. You have a 5% ASF, which is not great but you can cast your Conjurer spell-likes in a pinch and you can't risk a 1 out of 20 chance of failure.

The magic enhancement or the natural armor is not really necessary, so if you can't afford it you can avoid either its not a big hit.

10th level:
49K wealth
Feats:
6: Open
8: Arcane Armor Mastery
AC: 33-36

There is no ASF on the mithral buckler +3(9K), so its a good back-up for when you can't get AoOs on people (which is often considering the new Mobility or Tumble at this level, so you might not carry a lance at all). Your mithral breastplate is +3 right now(9K), and you can afford a Ring of Protection +2(8K) and a Amulet of natural armor +2(8k). This puts your total investment at 23K. leaving you 26K for other items (probably a +4 Int item and some odds and ends). You also haven't had ASP since 8th level.

This assuming you don't polymorph into something with decent natural armor like a troglodyte or an annis, sending your AC into the roof.

Overview:
Basically, with even a moderate build and the right equipment you can keep an AC high enough to put a fighter of your level to shame. That's not even counting that with your spells you can shoot up your AC and general protections (haste, blink, etc), and you can run around being a spellslinger of the first order.

I'd like to present to you the perfect weapon:

Upside
-Two-handed, so it does bigger Power Attacks.

-Adds a +2 shield bonus, so you can enchant it like a magic shield and you can get your shield bonus while two-handed fighting, and without any feats used.

-Adds a +2 to bull rushes.

-damage = 3d6/x2

Downside:

-Must take the feat Caught-off Guard, which is OK because it makes it more awesome (though you could just use the Skillful enchantment).

-double cost to enchant a weapon as a shield, and visa versa.

What is it?

A large table....., as per the Improvised Weapon rules on page 158-159 of the Complete Warrior.

When you take Razor Sharp Table Leg, the damage can go up to 4d6 and the crit is 18-20/ x3. Beware my Flaming Burst Table!

Why do Rogue have to take half caster level for Minor and Major Magic? It just means that they'll never take a spell that checks SR.

Seriously. Why can't all casters have a base caster level equal to their level. What would it hurt? It just means that they can use thier abilities against things with SR and that they have a little more duration.

Rather than try to give them a fullish spell list that is low-level (like 4/3/3/2 at 30th), go the other direction (2/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1 at 20th). Give them few spells that are appropriate to their character level. I mean, when a 15th level anything is tossing around 3rd or 4th level effects no one cares.

One of the problems this solves is the problem where a spell is placed at a lower level than it is on another list, so you get silliness like Bards making cheaper Wands of Charm Monster than the Wizard can.

Also, at higher levels you'll actually care about your spell progression, so you'll have less incentive to PrC.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080416a

Discuss.

Personally, not having Sorcerers really chaps my hide.

I can't tell if only Rogues and Fighters get Combat Feats in Pathfinder, or if anyone can take them.

Considering that everyone on the Fifteen-Minute Adventuring Day thread seems to want super-fast recharge times, I thought this deserved a new thread.

We all know that the Wand of Cure Light Wounds provides the healing that people want so that they can do more than a few battles a day.

So why stop there? Make all wands and other charged items cheaper, and make them rechargable at no cost by someone with the right item creation feat(which Clerics, Wizards, and other spellcasters will get for free).

That way, the Wizard or Cleric can save spells for when they need them like BBEG fights, and can cast from Wands for small encounters like the guards outside the BBEG's house.

Clerics can cast any cleric spells on the cleric spell list.

So what this means is that every time a new spell comes out that really is thematic to a certain god, every cleric in your setting can now cast it. The classic example is Slime Wave, a spell that is perfect for Ghaunadaur but makes no sense for a cleric of Sune.

In Pathfinder terms, lets look at Desna (Pathfinder 2). They are supposed to cast dream feast and dream travel. That's great, because Desna is a god of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck. Thematically, it all makes sense.

But should a cleric of Urgathoa, a god of gluttony, disease, and undeath get to use dream spells? By the rules, any cleric can cast these spells even though they are written up next to the god description of Desna and thematically should only be used by her clerics.

In fact, once they enter your game, any cleric can suddenly cast them, and thats just silly. Its fine if all clerics can cast bless because that fits into being a "cleric", but spells that are themed for a god should be for clerics of that god.

Suggestion:
Mark special spells like dream travel "Desna 4", so that only clerics of that god can use them.

Sugestion #2:
Make new "supplement" spells that are supposed to be be for all clerics only castable by clerics that find special holy texts or teachers.

In this way, each time a new supplement comes out you don't suddenly grant clerics a pile of new known spells.

I play a lot of Sorcerers, mostly because I think that playing Wizards is not challenging. I have a few suggestions for the new Sorcerer:

1. Remove the 2nd level. This means that sorcerers get their spell levels at the same time as Clerics or Wizards (2nd level spells at 3rd level, for example). Having playtested this in several campaigns, I can tell you that its needed.

2. Don't do the bloodline thing only. Seriously. I know that Sorcerers need something so that you don't PrC out immediately. We accept that.

However, there are a lot of flavorful reasons to have innate magical power, and a supernatural bloodlines is only one of those.

Here are some potential ideas:

--Born under a favored star

--Reincarnated hero who remembers magic from his previous life

--Pact with demons/elemental kings/gods/ancestors/other planar forces

--Failed Wizard/Cleric/etc who could not order his mind despite his magical talent

--Peasant magician who learned his magic from scraps of magical formula he found/stole from Wizards

--Raised among the fey/demons/aranea/dragons/kenku/gnomes, and you learned their innate magic.

--Anointed in a magical place. Maybe you drank from a mysterious pool and are now a water mage or you faced your dark side in an evil temple and now draw power from that.

--Royal Blood. You gain power from a royal/priestly/guild/heroic breeding program rather than supernatural blood, or one of your parents was a powerful wizard or cleric.

--Surviver of a magic cataclysm. After the Rain of Colorless Fire, you now have fire burning in your viens.

--Mystic. You were imprisoned in a featureless cell and were almost driven mad by visions. These visions brought magic power that helped you escape.

--Artist. In your search for the perfect expression, you learned the secret of magical power.

3. Let them cast metamagic on the fly, instead of making it harder. In my experience, Sorcerers don't use metamagic unless they use a non-core book to pay feats for the ability to do it spontaneously, so they might as well just get it free instead of being double-taxed for the privilege.

4. Add a known spell per spell level. After much playtesting, this is essential to preventing player boredom. Having a choice of one spell each time you get a spell level makes being a spontaneous caster a joke.

5. Let Sorcerers cast spontaneously from a spellbook. Make them pay a higher spell slot cost or more slots or something, but give the poor Sorcerer a reason to care when a powerful spellbook of magical lore turns up.

6. Remove familiars. Its fine for Wizards, but it doesn't fit the Sorcerer's flavor. Maybe they should get an Awesome Presence ability that reflects their connection to elemental forces of magic.

Ok, everyone knows that if a character wants an army to do his adventure for him, he can. Leadership can get you Cohort that is almost as good as you, Planar Binding can get you a mass of demons to teleport your treasure away from monsters you'd have to fight, and animate dead can get a zombie chimera that flies you around and fights your battles. This doesn't even count things that can charmed, created, commanded, or some other killer app.

The solution:

Institute leadership limits across all spells and effects that grants you units, and all effects use a combined Leadership Limit. Make it a simple "the more you have, the less powerful they can be."

For example:
Your level - 2 = 1 unit
Your level - 3 = 2 units
Your level - 4 = 4 units
Your level - 5 = 8 units
Your level - 6 = 16 units
Your level - 7 = 32 units
Your level - 8 = 64 units
Etc.

This will effect everything that gives you units. So a 9th level Necromancer with Leadership can control 64 human Zombies with two HD(CR1), or he could have a 7th level apprentice. If he casts a charm spell, any creature gained would come out of this limit. Or he could also have 30 2nd level Rogue Graverobbers and 34 Zombies, or any combo of the two. He could even have 10 2nd level Necromancer apprentices, 20 2nd level Rogue Graverobbers, and 20 human Zombies with two HD(CR1), and he can keep 14 slots open for regular guys that he might need to charm on a long term basis.

Spells that grant units will normally will be changed to a temporary effect. For example, animate dead as a default, will animate dead for one round per level (like a summoning), and only if you want to make them your permanent cohorts will they count against you Leadership limits (limited by the effect, of course, so a charm still checks saves every day). Charms, clerical Commanding, planar ally or planar bindng will all have durations in rounds or minutes, and will be longer if the person casting the spell has Leadership.

Ok, DnD 3.x has had one basic assumption that I don’t understand: low-level means low magic.

This is something I don’t understand. I know why bonuses are scaled with level…because monsters are built on that metric. The +5 sword comes in at a time when you need a +5 weapon to hit things.

But the rest is a mystery to me. Why do I need to wait until 7th level until I can afford a Cloak of Arachnia and why must it be the bulk of my wealth? It wouldn’t be unbalanced at 3rd level, and considering what it does compared to items like the 10K Ring of Blink, I’m never going to actually own one. All this adds up to useless items I am given at early levels which I sell at some point for real items.

Low-level doesn’t have to be low-magic. You can travel the planes and fight fiendish orcs and lemurs and still be fighting level appropriate things, and you can have a Crystal Ball at 1st level instead of 10th level and it won’t unbalance your game. The degree of fantastic things and magical elements doesn't change play. You could easily consult a sage and fight regular orcs and have the same adventure, but it'd be less memorable.

This is one area of RPGs that have been corrupted by MMORPGs. I don’t want to fight sewer rats at low level and I don’t want my reward for those fights to be a stone that glows. Interesting magic items and monsters and locations are even more fun at low level than at high level, because by high level your own powers eclipse anything an item does and you have powers that allow you to avoid locations. Why hop from stone to stone to pass a lake of acid if you can just dimension door the Party?

I’d like to point to the Adventure Path that takes place in Cauldron. The first few adventures were awesome. In the first, you had a trap-filled gnomish dungeon with illusions and clockworks everywhere. In another, you have to enter another dungeon by being suspended over a glowing green lake and then fight your way through an underground fortress. Both are memorable and fun adventures that are low level and have crazy things happening.

I mean, a sword that catches fire is interesting at 3rd level. By 12th level, a “fire sword” sword should be commanding fire elementals or blasting open city gates. Fun things should happen at all levels, and we shouldn’t let 3.xs dependence on Diablo II or 4e’s dependence on card games and WoW to ruin our fun.

Ok. we all know that magic item creation doesn't work well.

You spend XP and get your item. Then, at some point you are behind the XP curve with your party and are a level down. Then, in the next encounter you get more XP than all the other member of your party because you are a level down, and its basically like you didn't spend XP at all.

What did you spend? Money? We know that all it takes is one DM mistake and suddenly everyone is selling off the iron balls in the room trap for a million GP (a Dungeon Magazine goof in the Age of Worms Adventure path), or they find a way to transport a giant obsidian statue, or they summon an djinn and have him magically make silks and spices. Money comes and goes, and unless the DM is willing to risk player rebellion and dissatisfaction, he needs to ruthlessly railroad the players away from wealth.

So you don't spend XP, and rarely spend money. What's the solution?

*You can make any item with a caster level requirement that is four levels less than your (unmodified) caster level by spending time (or half your level, if that is greater).

This means that powerful items that you find are still valuable, but we don't care about if a 9th level Wizard with a +1 caster level makes a Wand of Fireballs(since his Fireballs do 10d6 and the wand is 5th level and doing 5d6, and we aren't even counting in his potential metamagic damage).

*Items take time to make, but if you spend money in a large enough city you can shorten the time. So, between adventures a Wizard might make some potions for the next adventure, but in a pinch he can go to Waterdeep and spend cash for rare components and the like to make potions in a hurry.

*Remove slots. You can have eight powers from wearable magic items. So, you can have an Amulet that makes you immune to poison(1) and disease(2), armor with an armor bonus(3) and Fortification(4) and ghost touch(5), and you have boots that Haste(6), a belt that improves strength(7) and a cloak that Dimension Doors once a day(8). Thats a lot of stuff. Do you need more?

As you can see, the "Christmas tree" approach to slotted magic items just means that you forget what you are actually wearing.

Ok, Linguistics is still underpowered compared to a lot of the other skills.

Here is my advice. Change into a skill like Scholastics. This skill will represent the ability to pore through old books and find answers to specific questions, and is one of the reasons the Scholar knows so many languages (because many books are written in different languages) and the character is used to muddling out different languages for his research.

This will be contrasted from the Knowledge skills because those skills are broad bases of facts, while the Scholastics skill can be for finding specific questions. So someone who is a vampire hunter is used to poring though old records to find vampires and their weaknesses, but his knowledge of zombies is almost nil.

I've created a Tome of Fiends fo those who want fiends in their game, or who want to play fiends, or who want to adventure in the Lower Planes.

I hope you enjoy it. The link is here: Tome of Fiends

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=646241

I've created a Tome of Fiends fo those who want fiends in their game, or who want to play fiends, or who want to adventure in the Lower Planes.

I hope you enjoy it. The link is here: Tome of Fiends

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=646241

Ok, I was in a game where the DM was running the EL 4 preset battle "Cutting Supply Lines" from Heroes of Battle. We won the battle handily, with no losses:

We had:
five 3rd level characters(PCs)
one 2nd level human Fighter(sniper)
20 1st level human Warriors(mixed archers and regulars)

They had:
10 worgs
10 1st level goblin warriors(worg-riders)
20 goblin spearmen(2nd level Rogues)
20 goblin archers(2nd level Rogues)

The goblin archers had cover from being in supply wagons, and the worgs were on the two flanks of the wagons. Our archers had some concealment from being in the bushes. They surrendered when we had killed or chased off the riders, the worgs, 8 spearmen, 2 archers, and had thrown up an illusion cutting their archers off from the battle. We stripped them of armor and weapons (mmm, masterwork) and sent them on their way.

Now, the DM said that he'd tell us about our XP gain from this battle next session.

Frankly, I'm having trouble calculating our XP gain for this battle. Based on advice from Heroes of Battle, you subtract your forces from their forces as a starting point. That means we defeated roughly 36 CR 2 enemies at an average party level of 3.

Per the DMG, I tried to calculate the total XP for that. I used this formula:
10 CR 2 guys = CR 9
4 CR 9 guys = CR 13.

Reduce the encounter down to CR 10 due to the fact that it was an ambush(and the highest CR with an XP total), and that gives each PC just over 2k in XP, which seems fair.

However, 36 CR 2 encounters gives 600 each, so for the party thats about 4,440 XP each, which is enough to level-up automatically. (Incidently, we got the treasure for 50 CR 2 encounters and an EL 4 battle).

How would you rate this encounter?

First of all, I have to say that I hate them too. They aren't very powerful, are picked for some random bonus, and are difficult for roleplay (do you kill the evil Wizard's pet ferret, or let the evil thing live? Why does the Werewolf Sorcerer living in the wolfgod temple with a pack of Dire wolves have a pet snake?).

That being said, Dungeon has been making Wizards and Sorcerers without Familiars for years now. Most months, about half the Familiar-capable NPCs have them. Sometimes, there is even a little flavor text to explain why the Familair is missing (like the old Familiar died and now the wizard has a broken heart, for example).

The last issue that I picked up was 0/4 on Familiars. Four NPC Sorcerers, and not a single familiar.

My question is this: why not just make some kind of "Dungeon rules variant" that adjusts for this fact. Give those arcane casters another metamagic feat or something.

I know that NPCs are seldomly minmaxed, but throw these guys a bone here!

The House of the Blue Lantern

Cauldron is home to several wizards and sorcerers of varying power and fame, as well as shops that deal in magical goods and items such as potions and alchemical items, but only one shop deals in the business of providing spell research and copies of existing spells: The House of the Blue Lantern.

The House also serves as the headquarters for a neutral order of wizards and sorcerers that use the shared resources of the House for personal research and as a headquarters in the often dangerous streets of Cauldron.

History:
Built a dozen years after the creation of an organized government in Cauldron, the House has long stood as a quiet, but steady supporter of the adventuring community. The House’s profits on the sale of spells and the occasional curative or cosmetic spellcasting has often been spent hiring adventuring parties to retrieve magical items or explore recently discovered ruins.

As a neutral organization, the House has avoided the power struggles of the city by staunchly avoiding interference with the workings or politics of the city, going so far as to avoid sending its members to prevent invasions or monster attacks on the city. The only interaction the House has with the rest of the city is its mercantile enterprises, and its support for a tradition of aiding the merchants of Cauldron by preventing magically-made goods from being passed off to merchants. Often, a gem or precious metals dealer will call upon the House to identify a large horde brought into the city by an adventurer, noble, or wealthy merchant.

Location:
The House is located near Skie’s Treasury, as Skie located her shop near the House to facilitate a mutual business arrangement with the House where she sends customers dealing in spellbooks to the House, and the House identifies powerful magic items for Skie.

The House itself is a well kept, two story building that features two prominent lanterns with blue glass that spill out their low baleful light across the street at night(treat the light level as candlelight). What is not commonly known is that the majority of the house is actually within the confines of a permanent Widened Mordenkainin’s Magnificent Mansion sustained by a Energy Transformation spell, and concealed with Non-detection and illusion spells. Consider all effects to be at caster level 20. Should the Mansion effect ever be dispelled, the entire location will explode from the pent up magical energies and experimental equipment contained inside (consider it a Widened and Empowered Meteor Swarm centered on the House’s physical location. The interior of the house is also under the effects of a permanent Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum.

The interior layout of the House fills 78 10’ cubes, for a total of a small front office, 40 small bedrooms, three master’s bedrooms, several workrooms, laboratories, libraries, and casting/summoning rooms. A Limited Wish tied into the Energy Transformation spell allows for extra-dimensional “stacking,” allowing other extra-dimensional items and effects to function normally within the House.

Cosmetically, the interior is everything one would expect for a location that has been home to hundreds of powerfully skilled and tragically or comically unskilled Wizards and Sorcerers. Expect permanent illusions, constructs, magical architecture, and several baffling and occult magical phenomena, as well as comfortable furniture and trappings, museum pieces from ancient civilizations, and differing styles and design philosophies.

Prominent NPCs:
The House of the Blue Lantern is home to 12 Wizards and Sorcerers of levels 1-8 who are aspiring students and teachers to the apprentices that come and go in Cauldron. At any time, there are 15-20 Commoners, Experts, or Aristocrats training at the house in the hopes of one day mastering magical powers. Assume that any Commoners training at the House are “scholarship students” who show exceptional potential for magic(casting stat of 16 or higher).

The House is nominally run by Delyth Ranthar, a 6th level Sorcerer/4nd level House of Blue Lantern Mage who is known for his scholarship of Cauldron’s occult past. He seldom speaks to anyone other than his fellow members of the House, but has been known to tutor particularly gifted Sorcerer students. He wears dark robes made from the finest fabrics, and is an intense man with white hair that appears to be in his forties. Should the PCs begin selling spells to the House that are not in the PHB, or begin selling around town Spellweaver, Kopru, Yuan-ti or other strange artifacts, Delyth will often ask the party for a personal audience. He might pay them to reveal details of unique magical locations or places with an occult past, possibly even going so far as to contract them to return to those locations to bring back samples or detailed maps.

Business:
The House sells common spells up to 7th level, but makes a practice of not selling Divination spells past level 3, Necromancy spells that deal with the creation of undead, Binding spells, or spells that have the potential to destroy or alter large sections of Cauldron (like Fireball or Control Weather).

The House will also pay full price or higher for copies of any spell not in the PHB, assuming that they don’t already have a copy of that spell, and half the scribing cost for any other spell. They will also pay for a demonstration of a rare or unusual metamagic feat or class ability (assume that they have seen the class abilities in the DMG). Spells and feats from “Secrets of Soul Pillars” would be one example of spells and feat that would interest them.

Hooks:
--After a particularly interesting haul of treasure, the House commissions the group to return to location to provide drawings, maps, and other archeological evidence. Other groups might also return, like Cagewrights looking to retake or conceal these locations (like the Soul Pillar, or the Starry Mirror), or Last Laugh goons looking to make a quick buck off of adventurers.

--A powerful former member of the House has been turned by a vampire, and now the House’s apprentices are being attacked in the streets. Defeat the master vampire, and possibly return the wayward Wizard to his humanity.

--A Succubus Illusionist has been accidentally summoned into the House and let free. Enter the house through the “back door,” and defeat the succubus without hurting the Charmed House mages.

--A team of House mage’s have been given the reins of command over several powerful monsters, and now they are secretly competing with the PCs to reach a magical prize.

--The Mayor of Cauldron hires the PCs to infiltrate the House and determine if the mages have any plans to break their legendary neutrality in the face of Cauldron’s recent woes.

--One of the PCs have been petrified or otherwise cursed, but they can’t pay the fees to cure their companion. The House sends them on a quest to retrieve components or capture a particular unintelligent monster.

PrCs and feats:
Disciple of the House of Blue Lantern (Regional Feat: Cauldron)
Requirements: Must study in the House of Blue Lantern for three months, must be able to cast 0th level spells.
Benefit: You are particularly adept at identifying magical forgeries. By casting Detect Magic, you can add +5 to rolls to Spellcraft rolls to determine that a material was created magically. Sorcerers add the spells Detect Magic, Identify, and Misdirection to their list of Spells Known. Wizards use these spells as if they had chosen them for a Spell Mastery feat.

House of the Blue Lantern Magic
Requirement: Must study in the House of the Blue Lantern for three months, Disciple of the House of the Blue Lantern feat, must be able to cast 1st level arcane spells.
Benefit: The caster gains one bonus spell slot up to the caster’s max spell level available that may be used as a Wizard slot(learn and prepare spells from a spellbook) or Sorcerer slot (cast spell spontaneously from spells known). Wizards casting spells as a Sorcerer(and visa versa) may cast any spell they have learned with a Spellcraft roll. Sorcerers using this ability are considered to be using a separate spell list, and they cannot mix these spells known with their normal Spells Known. The spell slot, once chosen at a particular level, cannot be later changed to a higher or lower level.

House of the Blue Lantern Mage
Due to House’s focus on blending the two forms of magic, they have found intersections between the two types of arcane magic.

HD: 1d4
Requirements:
Feats: Disciple of the House of the Blue Lantern, house of the Blue Lantern Magic
Skills: Knowledge(arcane) 9 ranks
Must cast be able to cast arcane spells of 3rd level or higher.

Skill list: Same as the Wizard list, plus Bluff. 4 per level.

BAB: as Wizard.

Saves: as wizard.

Caster progression and level: +1 per level of House of Blue Lantern Mage

Every two levels of House of Blue Lantern Mage allows the caster one bonus spell slot up to the caster’s max spell level available that may be used as a Wizard slot(learn and prepare spells from a spellbook) or Sorcerer slot (cast spell spontaneously from spells known). Wizards casting spells as a Sorcerer(and visa versa) may cast any spell they have learned with a Spellcraft roll. Sorcerers using this ability are considered to be using a separate spell list, and they cannot mix these spells known with their normal Spells Known.

As a player, I think that many of the locations in the Adventure Path make ideal PC bases. Has anyone else found this to be true or had this happen with their players?

Jazirune is almost perfect. It has:

1. A maze-like inner structure, with pre-built, key driven traps and "secret" tunnels that can be covered up with illusions or secret doors. This is great for "invasion" stories where teams of assasins try to attack the PCs.

2. Vaults to hide PC swag.

3. Good location. Right in the city center!

4. Bedrooms, water supplies, places to "store" monsters or build chokepoint traps.

5. A reputation that keeps away the less than exellently informed (only the PCs might know that magic items created there carry the Wasting).

6. A secret entrance.

7. Plently of space for the whole party to each have their own "dedicated rooms" for weapons practice, labs, rogue training rooms, etc.

The complex in Flood Season is also perfect for a mage hideaway.
Its:

1. Ideal for a Teleport, but hard to find otherwise.

2. "Spooky as all get out" with the green glowing lake and live-in aquatic demon.

3. Easy to defend. By disabling the pulley system, only wall crawling, flying, burrowing, or teleporting creatures can enter.

4. Comes with a jacuzzi!

5. Has a bunch of built-in non-intelligent creatures that can be manipulated with Charm Monster and Command Undead to searve as guardians. Hopefully your players Controlled or Avoided these guys rather than killing for XP.