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Awesome use of Diplomacy. The best role playing skill there is. Talk about over powered now, lol!
More entries from the same book: An armor enchant HARMONIZING:
PRICE +15,000 GP AURA moderate illusion CL 7th WEIGHT — Every step taken in harmonizing armor produces a symphony of sounds. The armor harmonizes with music played, lyrics sung, and words spoken by its wearer, creating a pleasant counter-melody. Its wearer gains a +5 competence bonus on Perform checks, but takes a –5 penalty on Stealth checks. The wearer can be silent only if he takes no physical actions. The armor also amplifies harmful sounds, and the wearer gains vulnerability to sonic energy damage (sonic energy attacks deal an additional 50% damage to the wearer). If the wearer has the bardic performance class feature, the harmonizing armor causes bonuses and penalties from performances that have an audible component to continue for 1 round after the wearer ceases performing. Beginning a new bardic performance ends the effects of the previous performance immediately. This ability does not stack with the Lingering Performance feat. The harmonizing ability can be applied to any armor, but not shields. A magic item BRACERS OF THE GLIB ENTERTAINER:
PRICE 7,900 GP AURA moderate transmutation CL 7th WEIGHT 1 lb. These decorative bracers are stippled with vibrant colors and have various tiny bells sewn onto their surface. While wearing them, the wearer gains a +5 competence bonus on Perform checks. Once per day on command, the user can gain the benefit of the glibness spell. These will work with the Geisha versatile performance idea. Both give
Lol @ Marthian. Another reason why I don't use 3rd edition books any more. Silver-Tongued is an amazing racial trait, thanks. I just found a magic item from the Ultimate equipment today: CLOAK OF THE DIPLOMAT
The forest-green cloak grants a +5 competence bonus on
Very awesome item, plus a +5 competence bonus to boot!
Sorry about reviving my old post, but I'm finally playing this character in a campaign. Currently he's level 11 and it's going very well. I use buff spells when I can't affect the enemies, haste or heroism, and i took some illusion school spells for backup, Color Spray and Mirror Image. It's a lot of fun and his dc's are ridiculously high at 11. With the addition to Kitsune's favored class bonus to enchantment dc's every 4 levels, I have a 30 DC to Hold Monster and Dominate Person. It will go up by 1 more at 12! P.S. I was able to fit in 2 more feats due to a generous DM: Spell Focus Necromancy, and Threnodic Spell. They were campaign gift feats. Everyone got to choose more. Now all the enchantment spells work on Undead! It's a really good build if you love enchantment spells.
I think its possibly human nature; but when in the game a player is wronged by another party member, it immediately adds an element competitive play, Basically PvP to a game that I feel was designed for cooperative play. Again, there is all sorts of ways to play, but I don't really like PvP all that much. I think this is what it comes down to. What you like.
For my money, Zen archer is a better archer than sohei due to the bonus feats. Rapid Shot + flurry + Deadly Aim and you're looking at -6 to all attacks at the level at which you can first do a sohei bow flurry. Sounds like a flurry of misses. ZA gets enough bonus feats to take every archery related feat you'd ever want to take, with the exceptions of Rapid Shot and Manyshot, which they can't use anyways, plus they get free Weapon Focus/Specialization, which trumps the attack and damage bonus from sohei weapon training until sohei 12 or so. Also ZA's are kiting masters since they retain full monk speed. I was thinking this might be true, but wasn't sure. Gloves of Dueling are something ZA will not benefit from but Sohei will. I believe that at lower levels ZA will trump Sohei in every way, but what about higher levels? There is possibly a break point where Sohei comes out ahead.
Here's where I wish I knew more about the inter-workings that Paizo's staff uses to create character classes. I'm sure there's a point value system involved. I can only compare it to other classes I've seen in the books. Balancing a class is a hard thing. I haven't tried to make a class myself, though I have adapted 3.5 classes to pathfinder. As for capstones, multi-classing and getting all the class abilities you want, yes. You can multi-class and get the abilities you want, but it precludes you from getting your capstone, and usually some of the more powerful high level abilities, as well as pushing back some of the really good ones. I believe that the Pathfinder classes were designed this way. They don't have every ability you want to get in a character class, yet have great benefits if you stick it out till the end. I see the Swashbuckler class (without modifications) as having everything you want and more out of multiple classes stuck together in one class, and if they even thought to balance it they erred on the powerhouse side. I still believe that you must balance the class against a single character classes abilities, not multiple character classes. I see the Swashbuckler class as not following the format of other classes at all. It's lack of really good abilities at higher levels (excluding find the mark and improved mark which is simply broken) and the fact that it gives the exclusive abilities of multiple different classes make it unbalanced. When you rewrite this class to balance it, I feel you need to take away some of the exclusive class abilities of other classes as well as adding some exclusive abilities of its own (especially higher level ones).
This is true. If the players fall behind they dont have to take on challenges of their CR though. But yeah. That "Expectation of being a magical xmas tree" is a pet peeve about pathfinder. Lol, magical Christmas tree. Thats an awesome phrase, love it, and so accurate too. In some ways, it's a silly game we play when you stop and look at it from a different perspective. One other thing I wanted to say about the pre-game disclaimer/vote. I would be able to handle stealing/killing way better if i knew that was on the table. I don't think there is a default way to play this game, but I do feel that forewarning should be given to new players about how your gaming group handles things of this nature. Failing to do this might cause out of game resentment. This needs to be avoided at all costs.
I've always wondered if Burst weapon enchantments are even worth buying, even for 15-20/x2 heightened crit weapons. I have this gut feeling that they are never worth buying.
Civility is underrated. An affect of the anonymous nature of the internet. I agree. This RAW arguement has gotten out of hand, and isn't really worth reading by anyone due to its negativity.
Ya. This is all you need to do. I hear you with not wanting restrictions on how you play, and wanting your gamers to keep issues in the game and not out of it. This can work with mature players.I've always felt that Pathfinder has a built in subsystem of expected magic items by level, so when items/gold aren't being evenly distributed some players fall behind the curve and can't perform at the level they are expected to perform for the CR of monsters they are facing. I'm the type of player who just wants to play the campaign without drama in game or out between players, and have everyone work cooperatively. I would vote for no killing each other and no stealing, but there's all sorts of ways to play.
Out of Game resentment makes this simply a bad idea to even be allowed in your roleplaying group. It's a cooperative game. Its a game you play for fun. Don't add drama to it.
I understand your wanting to include both uncanny dodge and evasion into this build, but you need to look at the archetypes and classes that already have these and compare their abilities\disadvantages to this class. It doesn't work for this class to have both of these great abilities and a full BAB and being able to take fighter only feats.
I like this idea quite a bit, but it might need to be a little stronger. Perhaps being able to move and take a full attack action while charging, as well as always going first in the surprise round. It's a capstone so I think it should be as powerful and unbalancing as some of the others I have seen.
Actually, alot of things (such as lucerne hammer) have bonuses to sunder specific items. Those items do not have the sunder property. The Sunder Property doesn't do anything. It shouldn't be there to be honest. - Gauss Why not? I thought if a weapon had the Sunder property it got a +2 to sunder combat maneuvers.
This class has technical problems. That is understood by all. It should have been edited better, but it seems that if you use a little reason based on what the writer of the class has posted, then you would apply these 2 rules to the class and it would solve this dispute. 1) The Sohei can't flurry with armor on. 2) The Sohei can flurry with any weapon he has weapon mastery in from his specific list at sixth level. This even includes two handed weapons as an exception to the recent FOB ruling. This is what was intended. I think we can agree on that. So this will be the errata ruling when they get around to it. So why all the bickering? Yes archetype's need to be cleaner and better to understand in terms of replacing/adding to the class, but intention does count for a lot. Maybe someone could answer my previous post about what makes a better archer, a Sohei with the potential for more attacks and weapon training, or the Zen Archer with less attacks but more feats. That's what I'm curious about.
Some changes: I like the Idea's you have here, but I think you may need to pull it back even further. The Sohei gets weapon training at 6th level as well as every 6 levels after that. This should probably be implemented. Next the only base class that gets both uncanny dodge and evasion is the rogue. He's seriously hampered by his 3/4 bab though, so you should probably lose one of these.I see no problem with improved reaction, and you could take it further without much power creep by allowing the swashbuckler to always act in the surprise round. Possibly cut down the number of rogue talents and definitely cut down on the bonus feats. This isn't a fighter rogue duelist. It's a single class. With that in mind, he should get some cooler abilities at extremely high levels, which I really don't see here. Give it a good capstone, but not Weapon Mastery. They really screwed up on this class and it will take some fixing to get it down to normal levels of power, but you're on the right track.
Ok, so lets just drop the whole he can't flurry with bows argument and just go with the Zen Archer and the Sohei can flurry with blows as intended. Now if you don't make this about RAW, then isn't the Sohei a superior class to take than the Zen Archer in terms of damage output? He can take feats to give him more attacks, and he has weapon training. Maybe I'm wrong in this, but I think I would take it over the Zen Archer.
I personally do not care about armor/no armor debate. The writer cleared it up, that's good enough for me. What I don't like it the fact that the Sohei is a better archer than the Zen Archer. With MS/RS with his flurry, he trumps it. The writer said nothing about this. So I assume that he was OK with this. So why would anyone play a Zen Archer over Sohei then?
The Zen Archer already gets more attacks than a regular fighter and can spend a ki point to get another one. He gets RS/MS built in to him. Yes he does. The Zen Archer is fine. The Sohei however is the one that can use his full flurry and RS/MS to get two more attacks and spend a point of Ki to get yet another one. I don't think that this was RAI for the the Sohei.
That is true. As a GM you have to make hard decisions. I would suggest this though, and it has worked with great effect for my GM. When a player does something very questionable such as rage-charge-pounce, killing the dragon in one fell swoop, he allows it after questioning how the PC was able to do that. later after the play session and before the next one, he looks up or has one of us look up the rules for the unbalancing affect. If there is an errata, then he shows it to the player and asks him to change it, as with rage-charge-pounce. If it is RAW but not RAI such as the Sohei's flurry + many shot, multishot, he talks with the player about it. If the player doesn't want to change it, he asks the whole group what they think. Then based on all the input he allows it or doesn't. If he doesn't allow it he offers suggestions on how something like that would be ok in his group, such as taking another feat to be able to do it, or something similar.
You can still make overpowered characters easily (summoner comes to mind), but with a little bit of houseruling Pathfinder is really very balanced. True dat. My GM is allowing the blaster sorcerer with the dazing rod for this campaign, but he house-ruled that dazing is considered a stunning affect and then said he probably will outlaw the rod in future games. Many overpowered characters I've seen on these message boards tend to take advantage of the rules in unforeseen ways, such as the summoner with a pet with 18 arms and 9 greatswords or rage-charge-pounce or the Sohei with a bow who flurries and uses rapid shot and many shot, even though the class that is supposed to be the real archer monk (zen-archer) cannot even use those feats while he flurry shoots. So in comes the RAW vs RAI. Most smart DM's will go with the RAI without giving it a second thought. But the Dazing Rod is different. It is RAW and RAI and its simply overpowered. It does exactly what the dev's intended and its unbalancing.
Dipping can add versatility, such as adding a level of wizard with the admixture sub-school, or it can hyper specialize your character, adding rage from barbarian to your already formidable two-handed fighter. Based on your planned out build, it can strengthen your character quite a bit while minimizing the push back of class abilities.
Personally in my campaign I do it quite often. The 1 lvl dip into sorcerer with the cross blooded archetype followed by wizard is incredibly powerful, until 20th level where the capstone will outshine it. Adding Barbarian to a fighter is incredibly good, and I've done that as well. Planning ahead is part of this game, if you follow your character plan, dipping can be incredibly beneficial even if he is a level or two behind the full classes. That being said I find the melee classes a lot easier to dip than the spell casting classes in actual gameplay, and do it a lot more with them than with casters.
I'm relatively indifferent to Dazing Spell.I'd say that a metamagic rod of Persistent Spell is a little too good for the price.What about rod of dazing spell. . . a non-mind-affecting daze? Huh? Errata please ): I think that both rods are powerful. Persistent Spell is a more powerful metamagic feat than Dazing spell, because its only 2 lvls higher. The fact that almost nothing in all 3 Bestiaries is immune to dazing makes the rod an unbalancing force in many situations.
I think that the blaster wizard with a 1 lvl dip into cross blooded sorcerer is the most powerful blaster class you can make. You focus on getting your saving throws for your blaster spells as high as possible: spell focus evocation, gr. spell focus evo, elemental focus, gr elemental focus, spell pen, gr. spell pen. Then use your cross blooded sorcerer archetypes to switch around the energy damage you deal so as to affect any monster. But the build is extremely powerful because of one thing: Metamagic Rod of Dazing. With your hyper focus in one energy type you can have incredibly high saving throws and be able to cast say an acid ball (fireball changed to acid) and force everyone in the area to save or have combat end for them. It essentially adds save or suck to your already good aoe attacks. Dazing Rod is the most powerful item a blaster can get in the game. It will end battles. It is incredibly powerful, and possibly unfair, as almost zero monsters in all 3 Bestiaries are immune to it.
I know I'm rehashing an old post, but I must say that MM rod of Dazing might be the most powerful Metamagic rod in the game. In our gaming group we have a sorcerer focused on blasting with all the feats associated with it. He's lvl 11 and he's worked to get his saves really high. He carries around a dazing rod and uses it with fireball, changing the energy type to something else if the enemies are immune to fire through his bloodline ability. The enemies all become dazed for 3 rounds and all that's left to do is cleanup. This one item constantly wins fights more than any other ability, magic item, or power in our game. I realized after seeing his blaster in game play, that if you didn't make a blaster like he did, ie focusing on high saving throws and the MM rod of dazing, then you were making a sub optimal blaster. Dazing rods are just too powerful. The fact that maybe 5 monsters in all 3 of the Bestiaries are immune to dazing shows me that dazing needs to be errata'd to be a stunning affect. Even then it is powerful.
I thought some of the abilities of this class were too powerful to begin with. The combination of full bab, weapon training, and the fact that they get evasion and uncanny dodge and a form of sneak attack is in itself more powerful then all the other base martial classes. Find the Mark is simply unheard of in any other class and can be used to great munchkin affect. This class as well as many other 3rd party classes continue to show unbalancing abilities that haven't been properly weighed against existing core classes.
One question I that has been bugging me. Can a Geisha Bard inspire competence in herself via Tea Ceremony? Normally she explicitly cannot, but it seems she may be able to with this new ability.
I don't care too much about tea ceremony, the armor and shields hurt, you can work with the monk and simple weapons, but i really love the skills she gets. She is better at social skills than any other class/archetype out there. My campaign has a lot of social interaction so i love the extra half lvl bonuses. Here's a hypothetical use of Tea Ceremony in a dungeon: The thief spots a trap. The group has a tea ceremony. The thief gets the bonus from inspire competence and then the geisha (who would have to be lvl 15) would start using inspire heroics while he disables the trap, lol. No, this sucks in dungeons. Much better to give the thief greater heroism and then inspire competence while he works.
I personally went with a ring of freedom of movement for 20k. I think it has a huge impact on the game and keeps a wizard safe better than any other. Its definitely worth the money.Note that this is for an Eldritch Knight, so "keeping a wizard safe" is less of an issue. Last three sessions, I was the tank. I here you. I don't know how high your campaign will play, but once you start facing monsters with auto grab and swallow whole, even the tank needs one of these. My whole group has got one at lvl 12; my wizard took the Craft Wondrous Items feat, and it's paid off on multiple encounters.
I personally went with a ring of freedom of movement for 20k. I think it has a huge impact on the game and keeps a wizard safe better than any other. Its definitely worth the money.
If your DM allows the Faction Guide book, then join the Kitharodian Academy in there and as soon as you have enough TPA take these feats: Master Performer:
When using your bardic performance abilities, you grant
your allies greater bonuses. Prerequisites: Bardic performance class feature, Extra Performance, Kitharodian Academy 15 TPA. Benefit: When any of your bardic performance abilities grant your allies a bonus, that bonus is increased by +1. Grand Master Performer:
You grant your allies even greater bonuses when using
your bardic performance abilities. Prerequisites: Bardic performance class feature, Extra Performance, Master Performer, bard level 8th, Kitharodian Academy 20 TPA. Benefit: When any of your bardic performance abilities grant your allies a bonus, that bonus increases by +1. This bonus stacks with the bonus from the Master Performer feat. It would take up 3 of your feat slots, they both require Extra Performance but if this book is allowed, there's not a better feat chain for a bard out there (who is primarily playing a support role). My group praised me to no end when I got my Inspire Courage bonuses up to +5 at 11th level.
A 5 level dip into Lore Warden gives you weapon training 1. With gloves of dueling that gives you weapon training 3. You also get +2 to cmb and cmd at level 3. I think this might be the most productive dip in another class for the Tetori Monk as it gives +5 bonus to your cmd and cmd's as well as the 5 from BAB. Taken at the right times this could be a great bonus.
Wouldn't you stack any BAB to your monk CMB and CMD bonus? its part of the formula for both CMB and CMD. So its additive. I think a 3 lvl dip into lore warden might be quite beneficial. Adding bonuses to hit are incredibly important to any melee fighter. You would lose Iron Body, but it comes very late in the game and from 13 to 19 there are no benefits to grapple in the Tetori class. Ah, except ghost touch inescapable grasp bonus, which is nice.
Assume the game is going from 1 to 20 (most of our games go that long). Apply the levels in the other class at optimum times, so that you get the abilities when you want. Try to balance it so that there is a low failed grapple chance if you can. Personally I want to be effective every round with a grappler.
Whipshire, Tetori's a great archetype! That one would seem effective at any level of game play. Do you think adding Lore Warden into the mix could strengthen the archetype? Or is straight Tetori better as a single class build.
Lore Warden and Barbarians do this better than any body else. Nice. Never looked at the Lore Warden before. That's a good edge. So what type of Barbarian makes a good CMBer?
It seems that many posts are stating Wizard, Bard, and Paladin. I think as many others on this thread do, that a staff of PC classes is the best way to rule. You can still rule o.k. with any class, but to rule well you need your bases covered. PC classes can cover all your bases, so there are many good adviser posts for them in the large kingdom of Fantasia. Thanks for all the input!
Hmm. I guess I was thinking 3.x again. You can grapple any size creature in pathfinder? That is cool, although most big creatures CMD's are ridiculously high.
I was thinking of playing a fighter/monk in our next campaign who focused on tripping or grappling, but it seems like a niche that is short lived. You can't grapple huge monsters, and high lvl monsters cmds become amazingly high. Vs. humanoids they seem to maintain their edge, but the monsters seem to have much higher CMD's than AC at higher lvls. Is there any way to make a character like this work at higher lvls?
You don't need to do any actions to gain the benefits of versatile performance, ie you don't need to sing to get a bonus to sense motive. It just works. I like to look at it as practicing a lot in your chosen versatile performance skills have given you a huge edge in their related skills.
Good point. I was thinking maybe that was why they didn't include bonus to perform items. In a sense it was already covered by Circlet of Persuasion. Also, it would take a lot of space to add a magic item for each of the perform checks. They would need a separate one for each perform in order for it to make sense. Example: dancing shoes for perform dance, keyboard for perform keyboard, violin for strings, etc. That would be a lot of items. I still don't think it would be a big deal to have a specific made item to help you with your main performance type, and still have a circlet of persuasion too for all the rest of your performs, giving you that +2 extra when using your favored type.
I was thinking maybe a book or a journal. Whenever you use it during your oratory it gives you the bonus. Another idea would be a robe that makes you look flashy and draws the eye when you give your speech.
Maybe I can convince him for a +5 bonus item. What would a +5 to perform (oratory) magic item be though? And would said item work with versatile performance?
I'm playing a Bard in my campaign, and he loves to tell stories. I haven't seen a single perform bonus magic item in all of the books. My DM will not allow us to make up our own items because it can quickly get out of hand with +x luck, holy, unholy, competence, insight, enhancement etc.. I was thinking the reason is because Bard's get 3 for 1 with versatile performance on a perform bonus magic item. I did find one magical Artifact, The Perfect Golden Lute from the advanced players guide with a +10 competence bonus to perform (string instruments), but its an artifact. That's all I found. (edit) The circlet of persuasion will give you +3 competence to each of the perform skill checks.
Another option that would trump a kitsune fey-blood sorcerer at epic levels would be a Controller specialized enchanter wizard. The capstone, Force of Will, affects targets who save as if they had failed for one round. So the DC really doesn't matter as much, particularly if you can capitalize on the helpless status of your targets of Overwhelming Presence by having other party members perform coups de grace on them. Before that capstone, though, the fey-blood sorcerer would probably be better as a one trick pony Enchanter. The wizard would definitely trump any other enchanter at lvl 20. My build somewhat maxes out at 17, so I like having the 3 levels of power. Ya he would be a one trick pony, but he would still have good things to do during the round if he couldn't use enchantment, like necromancy, and buffs. His great weakness be fighting undead. The Metamagic feat Threnodic spell would be a great way to get rid of that weakness if i could fit it in the build.
Whoops, Arcane Bloodline. My bad.
I have an idea of making the ultimate enchanter. I'm trying to get his enchantment DC's as high as possible in the Compulsion subschool. Here's my idea. The Fantastic Mr. Fox:
Race: Kitsune +1 enchantment DC's
Class lvl 20 Sorcerer Fey Bloodline +2 Compulsion DC's Traits: Magical Lineage Overwhelming Presence, Reactionary +2 Initiative Feats:
36 Charisma = +13 save DC's Total = +20 to compulsion DC's I would Use Necromancy as my backup school to lower enemies saving throws with quicken spell, or even a quickened Mind fog. I would then use metamagic Persistent Spell to one of my 5th level Enchantment spells: Hold Monster, Dominate Person. Or I would use Metamagic Persistant spell & MM Focused Spell on my 6th level Mass Suggestion. My other option would be my 9th level spell (metamagic'd with Focus Spell) Overwhelming Presence. So In the above examples i would try to lower my enemies S.T.'s then make them save 2x, and for the aoe's I would make one target save with a +2 to its DC. I think Overwhelming Presences' DC would be 41, and 43 to one of the targets in the aoe. I was hoping someone here would have some advice/knowledge on how to make my character idea better, or correct me if i'm in error somewhere. If you know any ways to increase my Compulsion DC's please post. Thank you.
Nice! that's very helpful thanks. I was hoping for a +5 bonus item or greater though, but that one will do very well if i can't find another. Plus it's a bonus to all performances which is very nice.
Circlet of persuasion: grants a +3 competence bonus on the wearer's Charisma-based checks. Costs 4,500 gp. That's an option. I do have a headband of charisma on however, and that gives me more bonuses overall than the circlet, and they both take the same item slot.
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