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Elves will understandably be fairly rare in SFS, but they've got a great jelly filling of flavor with their Gap betrayal and post-Gap history. Calistria is in the core rulebook as a minor deity as well, and the idea of playing as an elf bent on uncovering knowledge from the Gap with religious fervor for revenge is too good to resist. What better place to do so than among the Dataphiles in the Starfinder Society? But then we hit a roadblock: minor deities from the core book aren't legal per the SFS guide. Only the core 20 are allowed. The elves are quite peeved at this religious persecution, and they are patient in their revenge.
I'm interested in making a Red Mantis character for PFS and Vigilante seems like a great chassis for that, but I'm hung up on a few details. First off, I know the prestige class isn't legal and I have no intention of taking it, but Vigilante still allows a ton of the flavor you'd otherwise get. I'd love to be able to go dex-based two weapon fighting, and Lethal Grace seems like a fantastic way to do that since it's specifically not reduced for off-hand attacks. The problem, then, is trying to get dex-to-hit for sawtooth sabers. Slashing grace no longer functions with TWF to use them with a dip into swashbuckler, and Effortles Lace isn't PFS legal. Is there any other way to do this, or am I chasing a dream that just won't come together?
I'd love to know if Blood Kineticist + Overwhelming Soul is a legal option, as it would be very thematic for vampires and dhampirs. I found a few vague references in some old threads that it was, or was intended to be so, but nothing official. However, the wording of the abilities gives me pause since it appears that they both alter wild talents, but it's just fuzzy enough to give me a glimmer of hope. Relevant text: Blood Kineticist Blood Tell wrote: This ability replaces the 6th-level utility wild talent. Blood Kineticist Blood Throw wrote: This ability replaces the 8th-level utility wild talent. Overwhelming Soul Mind Over Matter wrote: This ability alters the kineticist's class skills and the key ability score of wild talents.
Gust of wind is a 1-round duration spell with a 60-ft line area of effect. A line starts from a corner of your square and extends in a direction of your choosing. A) If you cast the spell as a standard and move away with your move action, the line will continue for 1 round, but does the origin point stay in your original square, or does it continue to emanate from the corner of your square that you chose when you cast it, and therefore move with you? B) If it moves with you, will the spell sweep over the area and affect everything caught under the line as you move equally?
BASHCon is hosted by the University of Toledo and will take place from Friday, February 20th through Sunday, February 22nd. Player pre-registration will be open here through 2/13 with weekend badges only costing $15. Tickets will also be available onsite. BASHCon does not have the PFS events posted yet, but there will be plenty of new scenarios, high-level play, and complete 3-scenario story arcs for only $3 per event ticket. Saturday night will feature 4 tables of Year of the Shadow Lodge, the season 2 multi-table special. There will also be all THREE levels of Bonekeep to test your characters against. Level 3 is presented as a special charity event with tickets at $10 per player, benefiting BASHCon's official charity, Child's Play.
I played through Hall of the Flesh Eaters last weekend with my telekineticist. It was my first time playing him after sticking a few GM credits on to get him to level 3. Zenon Morgannan lvl 3 Telekinetic
The party consisted of Zenon at level 3, a level 1 wild child bloodrager with claw/claw/bite, a lvl 1 magus, a lvl 1 fighter with a 2-handed weapon, a lvl 1 warpriest of Gorum with a 2-handed weapon, and a lvl 2 arcanist with a longbow. Hall of the Flesh Eaters spoilers:
Our party had a somewhat difficult time with this adventure. There were quite a few combats with many hard-hitting, multiple-attack opponents. Despite having 4 front-liners with large weapons, my telekinetic was inflicting a large percentage of the damage, especially in the last two fights. In the second to last, we approached cautiously so as not to ruin a potentially diplomatic encounter, which squandered away the "advantage" given to mitigate the otherwise high CR of the encounter. Two PCs ended up dropping during this fight, but Zenon was easily able to tumble away from the ghouls and kite 2 of then along for a few rounds. Every time he attacked, he had a very high chance of dropping an enemy with his +8 to hit and 2d6+8 damage. He also took his only damage of the scenario in this encounter, taking 2 damage after being full-attacked by a ghoul. This was absorbed by his force-barrier, so did not expose him to paralysis or ghoul fever. The last fight saw our party cornered into the treasure room and struggling to get out, 2 more party members dropped, and Zenon tumbled around with impunity to get good angles on the enemies and blasted away until they stopped moving.
I tried to build him to manage traps to have something to do outside of combat but without trapfinding, he was largely useless against the hazards in this scenario. I feel that my telekinetic carried the party in terms of damage dealt while suffering little risk to himself. This may have been an artifact of being level 3 in a tier 1-2. He was able to freely maneuver thanks to his high acrobatics skill in order to get good angles at the enemies to minimize the effects of allies and other cover. Doing so didn't hurt his damage at all because each attack was a standard action, and he doesn't have any infusions that would necessitate gathering force to burn. That said, outside of perception (which he had to spend a feat on to get very good at) he largely didn't contribute out of combat and was pretty one-note to play, even in combat. I still had a fun time playing, but that was a lot more due to roleplaying him as a drunk jadwiga hobo. I would have loved to have had a few more skill points to invest in knowledges and maybe a bit more in-combat utility, even at a slight expense to damage. I've read a lot about the need to increase the damage for kineticists, but at this level it actually felt like a bit too much, even if it ended up saving the party. The GM and I cracked a few jokes about the "OP new material" by the end of the scenario. Looking forward to playing him again at a higher level.
With the ACG out, I was hoping to revisit the idea of making a dex-based striker using two sawtooth-sabers. I'm having some difficulty making it work out as I'd hoped. Swashbuckler makes it all possible with Swashbuckler's Finesse applying to the STS. I'd like to go with Slayer afterwards for all the assassiny goodness contained therein, but the concept involves QUITE a few feats to even get off the ground, so I was hoping for some help finding an elegant solution. The good news is, I can easily pile on GM credit for the first level or two to get over the hump. 1: Swash or Daring Champion. Swashbucklers Finesse, Weapon Focus (1st), EWP:STS (human or half-elf)
I had also considered a level of Warpriest of Achaekek for free EWP and Weapon Focus, but that would push my first sneak attack die all the way back to 5th level and further delay my studied target advancement, so I'm not sure it's really worth it. Is this a worthy pursuit, or should I just go for a str-based Beastmaster ranger build with favored enemy:human and a mantis companion?
Who else here is running the comic store invasion adventures? I'll be giving them a try tomorrow night. The first adventure annoyed me a little bit for prep due to the sheer number of statblocks involved in such a short adventure, but allow my annoyance to be your gain, since I've uploaded all the statblocks to the GM Shared Prep Site here. It seems interesting though, and there's certainly a lot going on in it.
Hallo my friends. I am looking to start my career with the Pathfinder Society, to travel far and wide. I hear they are having some trouble with demons, and I am something of an expert at breaking lines of battle. My name is Goff Goffrey, but I am better known as...the Red Rover. So what do you say, ladies? Shall I come on over? I'm looking to make a "linebreaker" sort of character for PFS, and I'd very much like him to be able to overrun fairly competently. Bull rush as well, and I think a shield slam build could end up working. I'm leaning towards trying out Brawler, but I'm open to other ideas. I'd prefer not to dump charisma, but if I can keep bluff and diplomacy up without it, that would be fine too. Any suggestions for build help with this? I don't have a whole lot of experience making combat maneuver focused characters.
In honor of year 6 of PFS having at least some focus on Numeria, I'm starting to think of a new character build. I don't expect to encounter all that many robots over the course of my career, so the new build needs to be generally useful but also killer against robots. Given that robots have electricity vulnerability and get temporary penalties any time criticals are scored against them, magus sounds like the way to go. Enter Yoshimi. I'm not looking for a super-optimized build, but I'd like to be effective AND be well-suited to PFS play. I am NOT interestedin making a dervish dancer or a bladebound magus. I currently have 2 modules' worth of credit on the character and can put a third on to get her to at least 4th level before starting play, but that would leave her fairly light on PP. Here's what I'm looking at so far: Half-elf magus 3
Ancestral arms: EWP Katana
The plan is to eventually pick up a keen adamantine katana, intensify spell, and not let those robots eat you. She has to be strong to fight the robots. I'm not completely opposed to a level dip to get her a black belt in karate (IUS) but nothing I could think of seemed particularly elegant. I do have a few other options for race...I have boons for Ifrit, Oread, Kitsune, and will have a Vishkanya/Suli one come GenCon. Elemental Knight is a little bit tempting, but the int penalty seems pretty steep. I've considered kensai a bit too, but it seems a lot better suited to a dex-based build for AC. Picking up Mage Armor would help alleviate that a bit, but the reduced spell progression isn't great either.
Howdy y'all! This here's gonna be the new hangout for the Blackwood Swamp Irregulars. I'm Annie, and I'm in charge of recruitment for our new rag-tag little band. We're based out of the fine ol' city of Cassomir, conveniently in the middle of this here Blackwood Swamp. The point of our little unit's to fight for the glory of Ol' Taldor in our own particular ways, especially if those ways ain't gonna fit in too well with the reg'lar military structure. Someone's gotta do the wet work though, and I can't promise that any of us are gonna earn our beards. Not like I'd be able to grow one anyway. So I ain't too good at introductions, but as I said, I'm Annie. My musket here hasn't earned herself a name yet, but by gum she's gonna. So now I guess I'd like to get to know y'all a little better.
I'm not sure if this could be made to work, but I'm loving the idea so far so I'm going to try. The basic concept is the Body Bludgeon rage power from UC and the Ki Charge ninja trick, also from UC, to pick up small enemies and throw them at over enemies while causing them to explode on impact. A few problems I see, along with a few possible solutions:
Even if it did work, I would assume that the ki-charge would be more of a burst of energy that would damage both the thrown creature and the target, rather than granting a free kill on the 'weapon.' But again, it seems that this could require some serious adjudication. In any case, discuss. Sign in to create or edit a product review.
Starfinder Adventure Path #1: Incident at Absalom Station (Dead Suns 1 of 6)Paizo Inc.Print Edition Unavailable Add PDF $19.99 Non-Mint Unavailable
Pathfinder Adventure Path #44: Trial of the Beast (Carrion Crown 2 of 6) (PFRPG)Paizo Inc.Add PDF $19.99 Print Edition Out of print Non-Mint Unavailable Solid adventure with glaring issues in the last segmentThis is one of the better Adventure Path books I've ran or read. There's a clunky introduction with a carnival troupe that never shows up again (I'm also not entirely comfortable with the troupe of "freaks" presented), though the investigation and battle can be interesting depending on the group. The second section deals with an investigation into the Beast's crimes overlapped with a dungeon crawl you can complete over the multiday investigation period. It's a comfortable time limit, with enough time that you aren't in huge danger of failing, but not enough time that it's a pointless addition. The actual areas and court room scenes are interesting enough, though the haunted town can get into rinse and repeat encounters that are either tedious or deadly depending on the group. The dungeon crawl is solid with nothing especially deadly or weak, though unfortunately there is little writing on what would happen if you tried to instead resolve the situation diplomatically. It expects the PCs to realize evil is afoot and simply raid the compound. After the trial, it leads into a much larger dungeon. The first part is fine. The encounters are interesting, but the maps are wrong (Most of it should be twice as larger but not all of it) and there are a lot of empty rooms with flavor but little in content. The glaring flaw in the book comes in the last section of the dungeon. First of all, all of the doors are barred requiring dc 28 strength checks. The writer thinks enough to give you a magical item to bypass the doors, but even with the magical item you would need to roll a 19 on the die with it at full power, and the item has charges. Once you break past the FIRST door you enter an entirely flooded dungeon. Everywhere is difficult terrain and if you are size small you have to make swim checks everywhere. The first two encounters in this section are behind traps, though the traps are not themselves deadly unless you have a player wearing heavy armor. The problem is that behind one of these traps is TWO high level swarms. Underwater. That can do both ability damage AND drain. My group had a pyrokineticist so could at least do infinite cone attacks, but even those would require very high caster level checks to get past it being underwater. I decided to just ignore the encounter after the first round when the crossbow user took dex damage and drain. There's also an encounter with a near invisible basilisk that could easily end the game before anyone can react. I removed that one as well. To top it all off, almost every encounter, and room, is completely avoidable with no loss of loot or story. The final mini-boss and boss are fine, though the final boss can be especially deadly with the wrong group or tactics. It seems perfectly survivable as long as the GM uses the exposition NPC nearby appropriately. This would have been a 4 star book easily if not for the flooded section.
Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone (Carrion Crown 1 of 6) (PFRPG)Paizo Inc.Add PDF $19.99 Print Edition Out of print Non-Mint Unavailable Bad encountersA creature with 10 hardness and a creature with permanent invisibility, both with negligible accuracy and damage to be fought at second level are bad encounter design. |