KA-BOOM!'s page

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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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.)

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

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

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?

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.

Okay, I've just about finished my character rebuild and have decided to ditch the White-Haired Witch part of the idea and stick with 4-8 ranks of Musket Master and 12-16 ranks of Grenadier. Now I will be taking both spare arms and the tentacle from the Alchemist Discovery list so I will have four arms and a squiggly thing. Four arms means i can physically carry two two-handed weapons. What I want to know is how does this effect combat and my build? I already know I can't use the default Rapid Reload feat that comes with the class as it is explicitly for muskets, so there goes my first feat... How exactly does Multiweapon Fighting work? The wording confuses me and could either mean first attack is at a -2 and the second at a -6 or that both are at a -4. And how does Multiweapon fighting stack with high BAB and Rapid Shot?

Just a couple of questions.

1) When the witch makes an attack with her hair and by extension grapples an opponent do they pull them adjacent or not? At level 6 they explicitly gain the ability to pull the target closer inferring that they are at a distance even though they've grappled the target.
2) Can the witch pin the grappled target?
2.5) If they are grappled with my hair, can I hit them with a 2-h weapon?
3) Would the following feats work as intended?
A) Feral Combat Training
B) Improved Unarmed Strike
C) Improved Grapple
D) Greater Grapple
E) Improved Natural Attack
F) Weapon Focus
G) Bleeding Attack
4) Any way of getting the Jaw, Bone, and Neckbreaker feats in there?
5) Realistically, what kind of damage could be expected?
6) Is the build even possible?

Okay, recently my 5th level Gunslinger/Alchemist build turned out to be fast approaching a deadlock so I've been given the chance to rebuild the character. Feeling in a sarcastic mood I decided to see how many limbs I could squeeze in... I've Got two Vestigial Arms Lined up in the build, The Tentacle discovery, and the White-Haired Witch... well... hair. All of these have been housed-fluffed to be my Kitsune's Tails.
Now my rebuild hasn't been finalized yet and part of me is considering just going for Monk-Witch with all the fun brought on by Feral Combat Training but I'm not giving up just yet... The original, now defunct, build was going to be a Siege Weapon specialist late game. There are crew issues and all but someone at our table mentioned that they remember multiple limbs having an affect of crew requirements.
Three days of looking and I can't find much of anything on what multiple arms allow you to do aside from holding a lot of stuff, which is useful in and of itself. Now I'd think that multiple limbs would do something in these regards.
Also, If anyone could point me towards the weight of siege engines I'd appreciate it.

The Alchemist is a Grenadier if that helps to explain the choice of White Haired Witch. Wrap them up and hit them with directed blast...