Kazi Rose's page

I'm playing a paladin of Shelyn right now in an IRL Rise of the Runelords game, and having a blast with her (see this alias if you want to read about her history). I do favor lighter armor for the improved aesthetics and grace, but a front line combatant is difficult to do with no armor whatsoever unless you build a monk or brawler, and even then it can be tricky. Bracers of armor would be a big help, but be warned, it's a somewhat expensive way to go.

Also, might I offer another solution? Either glamered armor or Shelyn's thematic armor from Inner Sea Gods fit the "pleasing aesthetic" bill while still giving you some protection.

I completely agree with all the advice people gave. Thanks for the 'hat tip' :-)

Regarding the guy stuck on the obsolete 'traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric paradigm', perhaps point him to The Forge of Combat.

Eh, we just roll with it. He's been playing since first edition, so he's pretty set in his ways by now. We work on showing him and changing his mind gradually rather than just throwing him more things to read. :)

Kazi Rose wrote:

Artoo wrote:

Instead of, or in addition to, Lunge you could invest some skill ranks into UMD and pick up a wand of Long Arm.

Hadn't thought of that - I think our skald's actually going into some UMD. I may have to throw one his way if I can't spare the skill points.

Edit: we have an alchemist. Yay free Brew Potion feat! :D

If he has infusions and the Longarm formula, maybe you can sweet talk him into handing you a Longarm infusion before a combat.

Indeed, although I'd be ok with potions if he doesn't take the infusion discovery. I don't know what his plans are with discoveries, and a potion I can keep on hand just in case. :)

Life link only takes a standard action to initiate, not to maintain. So I can have life link active before the fight even starts and have it basically running in the background on the most vulnerable party member. (That's one of the main features of life link, that it's passive background healing. Switching the link around in combat is not a very efficient use of it, considering it only heals five points at a time. That'd be the equivalent of doing nothing but casting CL1 cure light wounds your entire campaign.) It'll mostly be for switching from person to person after the fight, taking their damage and using fast healing to top myself off, then putting it back on the most vulnerable.

Channeling in combat's the main reason I'm worrying about having channeling - we have a skald who will be making liberal use of cure spells and wands, so he'll be doing a lot of the in-combat healing if we need it, but having in-combat channeling available is good for that moment of "oh $*!%, there was a dragon around the corner and we were stacked up for the fire breath".

(It's also due a fair amount to a group member VERY attached to the highly traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric paradigm. We're straying far enough from his comfort zone splitting divine and arcane duties between a paladin, a skald, and an alchemist. I think going without channeling might make him cry.)

It is more immediately important for classes like fighter whose main gimmick is getting hits in and using tricks. You have lay on hands and such as tricks to make yourself a tank, so you have enough going on to make up for the delay.

Yeah, I've got channeling, out of combat healing, and limited resurrections too - maybe I can get away with being a good enough reach fighter rather than the perfect reach fighter. :) Thanks y'all!

Instead of, or in addition to, Lunge you could invest some skill ranks into UMD and pick up a wand of Long Arm.

Hadn't thought of that - I think our skald's actually going into some UMD. I may have to throw one his way if I can't spare the skill points.

Edit: we have an alchemist. Yay free Brew Potion feat! :D

666bender wrote:

1) armor spikes = threat around you.

2) reflexes and lunge are nice but not needed. you need power attack.
3) are you going Oradin build?

Combat Reflexes is necessary. Lunge is about as close to necessary as you can get in a pure "reach" build.

I'm thinking -

I want to do as much as I can with reach, but I do need to keep the level 5-9 feats. So it's not a "pure reach" build. Is it going to be too hindering to not get Lunge until 11? We will have a couple of other melees to make trouble as well.

1) Ok, perfect.
2) I knew Power Attack was the absolutely required one. Wish I could pick it up at first level, but it just makes more sense fluff-wise to go Oracle first.
3) Oradin light - just the one level to be able to use life link with fast healing for out of combat top offs. I'm taking the between-fight topping off and the channeling and our skald is going for the single target heals as necessary, hugging the bloodrager that's gonna be the one most likely needing big single target in-combat heals. I'm playing straight life oracle this round, and the life link/fast healing combo is just too good to pass up, especially since it only requires one level of oracle and it works fantastically story wise for my character.

Thanks! :) Couple of things:

1) Am I going to suffer too much for not being able to end up with Lunge and Pushing Assault until level 13?

2) How important is it to have some way to threaten the area immediately around me? I know that if I'm doing my job right no one will end up there, but how much trouble should I put into that contingency?

2a) If it's worth it, I was considering Catch Off-Guard if I could find room for it to be able to use the butt/pole of the glaive as an improvised weapon in order to threaten adjacent. My GM is fairly open to personalizing things as long as it's not game-breaking, so I was thinking of including that feat as part of a custom archetype.

3) How worth it will it be to attempt to include trips/disarms/other maneuvers as AoOs given the right foes? I know it's only useful against the right enemies, which is why I don't want to try to feat into not provoking, but is it even worth the trouble at all or should I just stick to damage?

This is only my second campaign and my first campaign was as a life oracle heal-bot/buffer, so I'm still figuring out the physical stuff. Thanks!

I'm working on a half-orc oracle 1/paladin x for my next campaign. I have three feats set aside for Selective Channeling (5th), Greater Mercy (7th), and Ultimate Mercy (9th) because of group needs, but the rest of my feats are fairly open. We already have a couple of front-liners, so I'm looking at setting up for reach combat (flavorfully appropriate as well since I'm a paladin of Shelyn fighting with a glaive or possibly glaive-guisarme).

I've seen a few threads concerning tactics (and quite excellent ones; tip of the hat to you, Magda), but none that discuss feat selection much. The only one I know for sure is Power Attack, which I'm planning on taking at 3rd level (I don't have +1 BAB at first level). What are the 3-4 best feats besides Power Attack to take when looking at reach combat? Is there anything else I can get (traits, weapon enhancements, etc.) that will be highly useful?

Sometimes multi-classing is more about flavor than mechanics; even with all the work Pathfinder's put into new classes and archetypes, there are some concepts you really can't cover by single-classing.

IMO milti classing just seems like number crunching for the sake of having that godly character.

For my next character, it's really kind of both. Story-wise, she's been rescued from a past that, while not her fault, she's pretty guilty about, so she'll use the ability she was born with and the training she's received to do everything she can to save people now. Optimization-wise, a character with all the martial goodness of a reach paladin, while being able to use a level of life oracle and a pair of boots that give fast healing to heal the party to full in between every combat, as well as paladin channeling and lay on hands in combat if necessary, is going to be very, very helpful to the party. :)