KA-BOOM!'s page

Quadruped does give you a pair of arms in addition to the legs. I'll be hopping in at level 5. I'll have to look at the artificer and maybe talk that one over with the GM.

Wow, I just took a look at the alchemist discovery list. I don't recall the various bomb discoveries being so limited. I could have sworn that Explosive Bomb used to allow the use of elemental damage discoveries, like Frost Bomb. Siege bomb still does though...

I'm thinking building a "bio-terrorist" and taking Plague, Poison, and Boneshard Bombs. The Animate Dead spell has some rather annoying arbitrary limits on it regarding Hit Dice, but that just means I can't raise the larger dragons we'll be encountering.

Long story short, I couldn't think of a new character to roll after my gunslinger met an untimely demise thanks to getting caught out of position. The Game Master told me that if I was willing to go along with it, he would allow a randomly generated custom race of up to 36 points. Most players in this game are in the 16 to 21 point rang so I figured that with the inevitable bad rolls I would balance out and took him up on the offer.

What I ended up with was the following...

Huge size! (ruled as 14 RP, why he added this to the list I don't know.)
Half-Construct (7 RP)
Quadruped (2 RP)
Linguist (1 RP)
Greater Paragon (+4 Int, -2 Str, -2 Cha)(2 RP)
Powerful Swimmer (Which he gave me Swim automatically for a total of 3 RP)
Plagueborn (1 RP)
Advanced Constitution (+2 con)(4 RP)

For 34 Points

Stat line rolled up as: 15, 12, 11, 13, 11, 9

Well... That was unexpected. At first, I was considering asking for a re-roll. But the more I though about it, the more the race intrigued me.

Now I learned a long time ago that front line is best left to characters not taking -4 to their Dex. I don't like wizards, I just don't. And Druid, Monk, Wizard, Paladin, and Rouge are taken. So I was thinking of building an alchemist for the siege bombs. If anyone has any advice then it would be greatly appreciated, as the raw size of this thing has left me wondering what impact it's going to have on the party. We are playing a "Dragon vs. Airship" game so the size isn't much of an issue.

I have always hated magic classes. They are the bane of my existence both as a GM and Player. wizards and sorcerers are the worst. If they aren't wrecking the game they're stealing the show from everyone. Now before anyone starts talking about how "this class can deal more damage" or "that class gets more skill points" I want to make something perfectly clear. I don't hate them for their damage. I hate them for their overwhelming utility. Everyone in our group goes right for utility.

Hold Portal, Grease, Abundant Ammunition, Mount, Detect/Identify, Keep Watch, Floating Disk, Disguise Self, Sculpt Corpse, Ant Haul, Swift Girding, Arcane Lock, Alchemical Tinkering (Double Hackbut has a base cost of 4,000), Break, Oppressive Boredom, Unnatural Lust (yes I have seen story arcs ruined by this one,) Aboleth's Lung (I should have asked why he was taking that in a desert,) Make Whole, Whispering Wind... These are the spells that kill games.

Now I know the age old tricks of tiring the wizard, anti-magic fields, and "geek the mage" (to barrow a line from Shadowrun.) And we've all thrown anti-mage enemies at each other before. But in the end it simply comes down to the fact that given enough time to prepare his spells, the wizards/sorcerer (yes I know that sorcerers are spontaneous casters) has a answer for everything.

Here's where it get's worse...
Need a cannon? Arcane Cannon...
Need shelter? Secure Shelter...
Need Rage? Rage...
Need a crew for a Ship? Skeleton Crew...

Most of in the group have strong convictions against the GM using meta-knowledge of the wizards prepared spells and no one likes being on the run for 48 hours or more without rest. We're running out of ideas for ways to keep them in check. The only effective method has been non-stop action with minimal storyline because given even the tiniest opening and they will find some way to exploit it. Maybe we're abusing the class but it's getting old.

One more complaint... they get the item creation feats... the Alchemist doesn't get them but the Wizard who's only "craft skill" is Spellcraft gets them and can use ONE skill to fill in for any other craft skill.

I'm sorry, I know this was a rant but I am legitimately looking for ways to deal with this brand of ultra-utility magic beyond Flail Snails and minimalist storylines.

How exactly is he controlling 6 horses at once? It is a full round action to "push" an animal with Handle Animal. The animals also aren't combat trained... and why is them attacking considered a good thing? A light horse is looking at -2 attack for 1d4+1, even if he could get the animal to do so.

He's not Controlling them, he's using them to fill rooms so that the enemy as no room to move. Also, we have the argument that they are treated as summoned creatures and therefore controlled mentally.

We have a player in our party that is using Communal Mount to choke dungeons, pin bosses, attack, and generally wreck the campaign. The rest of the party loves this. Me and the GM hate it. We would like to drop a rule on him but we would prefer to do this with a rule that's already there and not have to house rule it. Anyone have any ideas?

Update...

GM is not trying to kill me specifically. We now know that we're dealing with a plane hopping maniac who knows who we are and has been trying to get rid of us for a while. Only had one additional run in with an attempted banish and that didn't work. We have lost the pixie but that was to a Golem in normal combat. So far the GMs been tough but fair.

I wouldn't call our GM cheesy. Though I would not be surprised if he upped the spells potency for this particular party (both who we are and what we're playing.) To be honest I'm just glad he didn't hit the crystalline member of our group. I'm not very familiar with the near infinite list of spells in pathfinder as this is as close as I've ever come to playing a true magic class. I've always avoided them on principle.

We're playing an all monster party (we each got to pick a CR4 monster) and I chose the Shae from Bestiary 3. The GM not so subtly reminded me of my vulnerability to Banishment and Dismissal. I was almost dismissed back to the Plane of Shadows. The party promptly clasped a pair of Dimensional Shackles on me and we went about our adventure... then they got hit by Shatter. Now we're trying to figure out if there is a more permanent means of keeping my feet in the Material Plane. One of the older editions of D&D had an effect that could break your connection to your home plane and by extension rules for establishing a new home plane. These both appear to had come and gone. So any advice on how to keep this from happening?

we never encountered reach weapons on our one off but the general idea was as you said. Light and One-handed weapons only could reach tile, most one and two handed weapons could reach two.

So we just wrapped up a nice little Pathfinder game early, mostly due to asking the GM run out of ideas after an in-party betrayal. We had a week were we weren't sure what we wanted to play next so we decided to take our old characters and run an experiment, the 3 foot square. Exactly what it says on the tin, this system completely changed the reach of our weapons, swords suddenly could reach two tiles (which really irked the knife-rouge.) Packing got tight and eventually we fell back on Phalanx tactics simply because of the "over-watch" this granted us. It's become a hot topic. We're trying to figure out if there is a place/use for this setup. Maybe a different system? Anyways we're looking for outside opinions. Anybody got ones they want to share?

"It deals lethal damage, even to creatures with armor bonuses."
This line honestly confuses me more than the line about treating it as a whip...
I have no idea where to even start on this one. Is this just for clarification in comparison to the normal whip? Then why not just say it "does lethal damage?" Is it saying that is ignores armor/DR? Armor bonuses aren't DR so that makes no sense.
Help...

The Deft Shootist Deed has the following prerequisites... "Grit class feature or Amateur Gunslinger feat, Dodge, Mobility." So does this mean that you can ignore Dodge and Mobility if you have Grit, or does this mean you need Grit or Amateur Gunslinger in addition to Dodge and Mobility?

Clockwork Automatons! That's what they were called. They were in an odd little side text of some kind.

It was a specific set of rules, a sort of immortality out that didn't require any outside assistance or "evil" lich ritual. It was a separate ritual with it's own rules but was lich-like in that you become immortal (unless your construct is destroyed, then you could be resd at the age you were when you underwent the ritual) and no, it wasn't possess object. thanks for that though... might let us homebrew it...

We do not consider Items to grant permanent bonuses nor do they count for feats because if you loos the item then there goes your score boost and your entire build can go straight out the window. I loose my headband, my Dex mod plummets from a 19 to a 16. Even if we did see them in the RAW way, we don't trust them. Right now we're looking at a 25 point build or the static list already mentioned.

I remember there being rules somewhere for creating a construct then placing your soul into the construct. This wasn't a piecemeal deal or prosthetic, this was a full swap over. One of the things it talked about was the fact you could basically store yourself for a long period of time until someone woke you up. Does anyone know what i'm talking about?

The concern is finding a balance in stats where you can actually take things like Greater Two weapon fighting and still have a strength high enough to actually do more than 1 Die + 2 (with a +1 enchanted weapon.) a lot of things in this game, when dealing with point builds, end up locking you out of other just on requirements alone. I get the idea that you only have so many resources, and maybe I'm spoiled from Shadowrun 4's character generation, but there are a lot of builds that you just can't front the stats for on a 20pt build let alone a 15.

We're considering setting down as a group and turning out a uniform code of house rules. We have a long list of things we're going to discuss and first up is character generation. We have an interesting proposal, to give each player 8, 10, 12, 14,16, & 18 and are allowed to assign them as they will.

I both like and fear this idea. I like it because it allows players to actually have that 19 Dex at BAB +11 for two weapon fighting and still have a decent strength. I fear the idea because I see things getting out of hand when we start getting out +1's. Does anyone have suggestions?

The magical crafting rules are fine, but mundane crafting is what takes forever. The numbers you're presenting are only for magical creation, wondrous items and the like. The formula for standard crafting, such as mundane weapons or traps, use silver pieces instead of gold pieces for the calculations. Along with that, when you make your check using the Craft skill, it's for one week's worth of work, instead of 8 hours per 1,000 gp when creating a magical item.

Lastly, some groups don't have the downtime needed to craft things at the standard rates. 26.5 days is a lot of downtime for some groups, let alone 120 days.

Craft magical arms and armor feat says "Enhancing a weapon, suit of armor, or shield takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in the price of its magical features" and I recall somewhere saying that this amounts to an 8 hour workday and that you weren't allowed to work overtime.

The check doesn't come until the end of the time period.

Okay, barring strange things such as the gunslinger's ability to craft ammo for 1/10th cost or the Forge Master's ability to craft in less time the typical formula for crafting times as I understand it is the items market value divided by 1,000 and the manufacturing cost is 1/2 the market value.
I recall someone saying that it would take them years to craft Mithral Full Plate. How does this work when making a mithral Item increases the cost by 500gp per pound. Full plate weighs only 50 pounds... that's 25,000 + base cost of 1,500. 26,500/1,000= 26.5 days and costs 13,250gp to manufacture.
It only takes 120 days to make a Clockwork Golem, 142 of your looking at giving it a brain, skills, and feats so it can make another golem for you (an interesting abuse of the rules that only requires the assistance of a mage with the appropriate spells.)

This is what both tables I play run on and it works well enough for us. So are we missing something?

Does anyone else here think that there are certain feats that make absolutely no sense or are no where as useful as they should be?

1/2 the feat is pointless...

Siege Gunner

"You take no size penalty for aiming a direct-fire siege weapon larger than yourself. If you operate an indirect-fire siege weapon and miss, you misdirect fire by 1 square per range increment."

But from the rules on direct fire siege engines.

"Creatures that have ranks in Knowledge (engineering) or use a targeting platform (see below) are not adversely affected by their size when firing direct-fire ranged siege engines."

While reigning in a stray shot from an indirect siege weapon is nice, this feats does nothing to help anyone with Knowledge Engineering when dealing with Direct Fire Siege engines. Worse yet, Siege Gunner requires Siege Engineer which requires 5 ranks of either Engineering or Profession: Siege Engineer. It is a self de-feat-ing feat.

Three oddly overlapping feats...

Point Blank Master
Choose one type of ranged weapon. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity when firing the selected weapon while threatened.

Sword and Pistol
When you use the Two-Weapon Fighting feat while wielding a melee weapon and a crossbow or firearm, your attacks with the crossbow or firearm provoke no attacks of opportunity from foes that you threaten with your melee weapon.

Gunslinger
When you attack with a firearm, you do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

While they are all just different enough to justify them, the mass of prerequisites on Sword and Pistol make it vastly outclassed by gunslinger for anyone using a handgun. Point Blank Master is far easier to get than Sword and Pistol and while it is class limited those two classes are Fighter and Ranger, Those who are most likely to need it.

Any others people would like to point out?

I have done neither of those actually... partially because I'm having to sub for the chicken tank and we have a damn good wizard.

And I hate house ruling games. It makes me feel like the game is broken and I'm left having to fix what the developers couldn't be bothered to, so i huge the rules hard.

My lack of fun is stemming mostly from reading the rules, thinking something is legal, then finding out that Paizo changed that on me with either an explicit or general ruling made in an FAQ no one told me about.

KA-BOOM! wrote:

Feels arbitrary.

Tis not arbitrary.

It is simply to stop you from going, "Wow look if I scour 14 books and fashion it all together in a manner never intended I win the game and all the spotlights are only for me because I am so awesome and the DM will have to set up encounters only for me."

If a character presented me that concept I would have it die in char gen until they came back with something reasonable.

Few posts up. I explained why i'm bringing such an insane character to the party.

Also, if they don't like how their rules mesh then shouldn't they keep that in mind when they write them? I'm an alchemist with four arms, well i don't get bonuses to grapples, I can't dual wield two handed weapons. There's a good chance that I don't have a melee weapon if i'm a pure alchemist. All they do is hold things and let me pick from four different one handed weapons of which I really only need to to do anything. So this discovery is completely wasted. It offers no advantage, eats two Discoveries, and can only truly be justified if you take a third Discovery (Parasitic Twin) and a Feat (Die for your master) which isn't worth the effort.

Besides, What fun is there in yet another 8th level fighter? or the wizard hitting level 9, he has Cloudkill and Grease, unless the GM starts throwing constructs we're just here to carry his loot. Ranger shoots everything twice AGAIN. Or the most boring of boring classes, the vanilla paladin. Whole reason I picked up Gunslingers and Alchemist is the wide array of different ways to play each. They are larger than life characters (it's even a trait) that break the boredom. Besides, if the GM wanted to get rid of me all that would take is anything with a high dex and combat reflexes. I provoke shooting and reloading.

I would say yes because specific out weighs general. That being said it's just one of many overlooked problems they just haven't had time to fully work out yet. Kind of like the wording on the weapon enchantment Speed and what happens if you dual wield them. I believe we have an official answers (they don't stack, even though they aren't stacking to begin with) but the text still says "When making a full-attack action, the wielder of a speed weapon may make one extra attack with it."

Restrictions are good. Let the order of universal law reign over your soul.

I was born Chaotic Neutral and I'll die Chaotic Neutral.

I don't know, some of this feels like those video games where you can't wear a Hat until you've met the level requirement to do so. Feels arbitrary.

I should never have picked up Shadowrun, I was spoiled by the freedom. Now everything just feels restrictive.

I actually picked up the moniker after I broke out a Fiend's Mouth Cannon in the middle of a fight (wizard was kind enough to drop shrink item and Permanency on it), tossed in an Alchemical Siege Bomb, and took out half the opposing force... I lost the thing when I used it to sink a ship of the line we were ON, but it was a hilarious way to cap off level 11.

Come to think of it we never did determine what action it was to fire the thing. We just said swift because it was a full-round or move just to aim.

I'm sure some people are wondering why the insane build... We're playing a game where nothing is less than 2 CR higher than the party, most are 4. First day we averaged 6 points of strength damage a piece. I'm also the party's primary damage dealer and, because our tank is a bloody coward who would rather stand in the back and use a wand of magic missile, I'm subbing for her.

Are your Culverin's braced?

If not, you're at -4 to hit, and prone after the first shot.

Also, Culverins are muzzle-loaded, and are considered Early rifearms (reloading is a Full round action). Your cartridges will bring that down to a Standard Action, Rapid reload to a Move (assuming your GM allows the stack). So as you can't reload as a free action, you can't use iterative attacks with them.

Unless I'm missing something.. The speed quality doesn't affect reload time, does it?

Oh, and it seems there's something just come up in the FAQ about not been able to use 2 Handed weapons when two weapon fighting, even with 4 hands.

Why don't you just use 4 Mithril revolvers?? Ouch!

Fast Musket Class feature applies to all two-handed firearms, letting me reload them as if they were handguns, rapid reload takes it from a standard to a move, alchemical cartridge takes it to a free.

Also, typically i have my back to a wall and we're assuming the culverins are old style hand cannons with the wooden arm coming off the back.

GM's ruled that since speed says explicitly "When making a full-attack action, the wielder of a speed weapon may make one extra attack with it" that it stacks.

They seriously threw an arbitrary ban on dual wielding two handed weapons when you have four arms? Link plz?

Alright, thank you... so...

all GTWF with Speed Weapons
right: +12/+12/+7/+2/-3
left: +12/+12/+7/+2

-2 to all for scatter & -2 to all for rapid shot...

right: +8/+8/+3/-2/-7
left: +8/+8/+3/-2
rapid: +8

So...
+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+3/+3/-2/-2/-7

That should do quite nicely...

Now add +2 for point blank and focus...

+10/+10/+10/+10/+10/+5/+5/0/0/-5

Why are you using Multiweapon Fighting, does the character have 3+ hands?

I am playing a four armed kitsune Gunslinger-Alchemist (musket master-grenadier) dual wielding mithril culverins with alchemical cartridges... any questions?

Which reminds me, there's a -2 penalty for using a scatter weapon.

Okay, here's i need a walk through, step by step, on when and how I apply all of this because the rules as written make no sense to my literal mind.

BAB +16/11/6/1

Multiweapon fighting
Imrpoved Two Weapon Fighting
Greater Two Weapon Fighting
Rapid Shot
Two Speed Weapons

i thought it would go like this...
BAB +16/11/6/1

MWF
Right Hand: +12/11/6/1
Left Hand: +12

ITWF
Right Hand: +12/6/6/1
Left Hand: +12/6

GTWF
Right Hand: +12/6/-4/1 (???)
Left Hand: +12/6/-4

Rapid Shot
Right Hand: +10/4/-6/-1 (???)
Left Hand: +10/4/-6
Either: +10

Speed
Right Hand: +10/+10/4/-6/-1 (???)
Left Hand: +10/+10/4/-6
Either: +10

Alternatively...

BAB +16/11/6/1

MWF
Right Hand: +16/7/6/1
Left Hand: +7/6/1

ITWF
Right Hand: +16/7/1/1
Left Hand: +7/1

GTWF
Right Hand: +16/7/1/-9
Left Hand: +7/1/-9

Rapid Shot
Right Hand: +12/3/-3/-13
Left Hand: +3/-3/-13
Either: +12

Speed
Right Hand: +12/12/3/-3/-13
Left Hand: +12/3/-3/-13
Either: +12

Last idea...

BAB +16/11/6/1

MWF
Right Hand:+12/8/4/0
Left Hand :+12

ITWF
Right Hand:+12/3/-2/-4
Left Hand :+12/3

GTWF
Right Hand:+12/3/-7/-9
Left Hand :+12/3/-7

Rapid Shot
Right Hand:+10/1/-9/-11
Left Hand :+10/1/-9
Either :+10

Speed
Right Hand:+10/10/1/-9/-11
Left Hand :+10/10/1/-9
Either :+10

Pathfinder Alchemists have a lot of dirty tricks up their sleeve and multi-class well. The problem is they aren't so much alchemists as they are raving lunatics chugging mutagens and throwing bombs. The closest thing to a true alchemist in some ways is the Dwarf only Cleric Forgemaster. Well I want to change that.

I want to make a relatively balanced Home-brew Alchemist that can make magical and wondrous items as well as constructs without the hassle or limitations of Master Craftsman.

The question is how would I best go about this. What features should he loose and the like.

Are they Blueberry?

At first I was going to put this on the Rule Questions page but realized it wasn't so much a question as a rant/discussion.

This is a rule that has bugged me since I first played 3.5 and usually amounts to something like this...

"Once the creature cuts it's way out of another creatures stomach, muscular action closes the hole; another trapped opponent must cut its own way out"

Now my knowledge on the subject in real life is somewhat limited to Pica cases and the like. But the rule just strikes me as plane stupid. It's a hand wave to justify a tactic that very few real world animals use (swallowing prey alive, whole, and [b]conscious[b/]) and many who do often die as a result.

I suppose it's there to keep players from using it as an easy way to kill something, but the monster shouldn't have been stupid enough to swallow the target in the first place. (ever since I started playing Alchemists in Pathfinder the GM doesn't even try it with me because I just gulp down Energy Resistance and Detonate)

Certain exceptions should be noted. Some creatures are constructed or created with this specifically in mind. I recall at least one in 4th edition (hey, might not been real D&D but it was a great hack and slash.)

Thinking about, you would either be considered prone because you are sitting in the saddle, or you would be knocked off the horse (DC 5)

Is there any functional difference between these or are they all the same in how they play out?

I'd rule: "Make a ride check or knock yourself out of the saddle. If you fail by 5 or more, you get dragged in the stirrup. If you succeed, your grip on the saddle and your feet in the stirrups kept you up. I DO hope your mount is accustomed to firearms...?"

covered under combat training... at least when I train them it does.

i figured one was assumed on a military saddle, and that it would be too limited with it's arch

Since no one brought up a hard and fast rule I missed, and I had a surprise run in with our GM, I asked the GM... DC 15 ride check after each shot or I fall off the horse... need to make room in my feat list for mounted combat and trick ridding.

Exact wording...

"Firing a culverin without support (such as a wall, a window, or a stand) imparts a –4 penalty on the attack rolls, and the wielder is knocked prone."

If I'm ridding an animal and fire a gun that would knock me prone if i was standing, what happens?

I can't help but get the feeling that this is a power-gamer looking for 'God mode' play.

Levels 1-2 are almost always worried about dying. 3+ is when the game gets fun, you have enough HP to be less worried about the one hit kill and usually enough tricks to help in or out of combat.

Aside from the 13 attack gunslinger I worked out for my current game (a game dedicated to what you call "god mode" play and nothing's less than 4 CR higher than the party) I don't really power game. What I like is the flavor of classes. The gunslinger for example can do some neat tricks before level 7, But he does feel like the fast shooting, dead eye until he gets targeting or Improved Snap Shot. The alchemist doesn't feel like the crazed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide until he gets a decent mutagen, Frankenstein until he gets Torturous Transformation (I know it's band for PFS), or the Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight till he gets Fast Bombs.

I see where multi-classing would be popular. Done right it would give you a lot more development in a much shorter time. For example White-haired Witch + Monk with Feral Combat Training. two ranks and your already starting to show a distinct Lock-and-Bleed-Dry approach.

And again, I don't like the Core Magic classes, aside from being played to death they just don't feel right to me. D&D and by extension Pathfinder are games built for magic, everyone else is just there to eat the blows for him or clear out anti-magic areas and golems. It feels like favoritism, like what's going on with Shadowrun and Hackers.

Gunslingers don't get Targeting till 7, and that's when they truly hit their stride.
Alchemists don't start getting the good discoveries until 12, they don't even get a better mutagen before 12.
Witch doesn't get major Hex or until 10.
Most don't get 5th level spells till 10-14 area
a number of feats need a BAB of +9 or more.

Unless your looking at monk, fighter, or possibly certain gunslinger builds you are just getting good when the game drops out from under you.

I'm disappointed that the practical level limit is so low. Most characters don't fully flesh out until levels 7-13.

Okay, subject line says plenty. My problem (aside from having difficulty navigating this webpage) is even with the resources I've found there are a few things I'm not entirely certain of in regards to Society rules. A few questions...

1) Am I correct in understanding that, aside from Day Job earnings, the Craft Skills are more or less pointless under their rules, same goes for the construction feats?

2) The ONLY way to get your hands on magic arms or armor, or wondrous items, is to have said item show up during game play... So if you're looking of an off beat weapon-enchantment combo then you're chip out of luck?

3) Permanency, Awaken, and reanimate are forbidden. Doesn't mater much to me because I never play spell-casters but are there any others that are forbidden?

4) Do they use the typical level cap of 20 or do they go beyond said limit? And what happens to your character when said limit is reached? I like alchemists so what if I take the Eternal Youth Grand Discovery?

5)Siege Engine skills and feats? Pointless, right?

6)Anything they don't mentioned in the Guide that I should be aware of before I go through the hassle?

I was afraid of that...

Okay, to make an item out of Mithral you need to pay 500gp per pound. Mithral also cuts the weight of the object in half. So which weight are we suppose to use? The full weight or the weight post conversion to mithral.

Assuming you hit of course.

The more I look at it the more I'm considering a full 12 of Gunslinger... Between the BAB and the fact I'm hitting touch attack with a weapon that ignores most of the usual environmental issues I don't think I'll have a problem. I will need to be prone most of the time but I can work with that. Snap Shot, fast crawl, and prone shooter.