Latrans's page

For you first campaign watch yourself that you don’t bite off more than you can chew by doing major overhauls of an AP.

Carrion Crown could be modified to that without too much difficulty. Books one, a chunk of the three, five, and six are all undead heavy with an occasional demon mixed in on the last two. Book four can be rewritten with a demonic antagonist rather than eldritch horror.

Mummy’s Mask is almost as heavy on undead and more prone to mixing in demons than Carrion Crown. Elementals are fairly common and are a mixture of antagonistic or neutral. But it is almost devoid of fey type creatures and with the Egyptian theme awkward to add them in. Although as a new GM you may want to find a way to cut out the research parts of book three rather than learn a whole new rule subset.

Although a warning for if your players are also fairly new, both of these are notorious for killing PCs. Undead have a lot of tricks between energy drain and other death effects that can quickly overwhelm characters that aren’t protected.

The only real problem is you lose a level in phantom power and spell casting for every level of rogue you take. It really sucks because there is no divine version of an Arcane Trickster. Even so your phantom is based soley on the Spiritualist level.

Not knocking the idea at all. It does sound like a cool multiclass idea. One feat bumps your sneak attack by one. Take a Teamwork feat and you could get another D6 out of it. I know you have a theme but consider a Catfolk for race. A talent improves sneak to a D8 damage. Get flanking and you will wreck a monsters day.

There’s the Phantom Ally feat to boost the phantom’s level akin to Boon Companion to bolster the phantom enough to be full level, so that part isn’t really a problem.

There is the delay in actual spiritualist class abilities and spells, but most of the class abilities don’t really add much for a flanker unless there is a means of consistently giving the phantom reach. As for spell, not much that can be done there but sounds like going to have enough martial to make up for some of that.

So they managed to reach the demon a little faster than expected and they did fall for the trap and made their wish.

They wished for a Belt of Physical Might +6 (str & con) for the teifling front liner who immediately put it on.

Now, a big thing to note is said teifling is of demon ancestry so it gives an interesting options there.

I’m GMing a game and fairly soon players will be encountering a demon that wants to trick them into making a corrupted wish posing a a benevolent Djinni captured by said demon. I suspect stat bonus is a likely but corruptions for other possible wishes are welcome.

Big things I DO NOT want:
Instant character death
Forced shift to evil alignment or other means of taking away player agency on character personify
Fluff only negative effects

I’m strongly considering a slow burn so effect may not be readily apparent. (Read: I’m going to come back and post the specific wish here after its made to get more specific means of having the twist show up.)

Thanks in advance.

The fastest I've had in a game I've played was a Paladin/Hellkight with a 50ft base plus the ability to do Cheetah Sprint once per day in an urban environment and the ability to ignore difficult terrain several turns per day. While slow by the comparisons here, I think she deserves an honorable mention due to her doing it in heavy armor.

Fey are similar to native outsiders due to the First World being a plane that is in the same place as the material plane just behind it like a half finished painting that was painted over when the artist decided they had a better idea. Since they're cut from the same cloth they aren't truly extraplaner. But unlike any form of outsiders, they don't have souls (per Fey Revisited) making them different than the unified body and soul of actual outsider and the dual body and soul nature of mortals.

On the subject of Outsider procreation, to the best I can recall outsiders cannot breed with each other in the traditional biological fashion. It appears they need a mortal creature of some kind to take part in it giving us half-celestials, tieflings, and such. The only time I've found of two outsiders having offspring were when at least one was of at least demigod equivalent power. (And I want to say, all instances were both of at least that power but I'm not sure of this.) Considering demigod level of power grants demon lords the ability to shape and create things in their section of the Abyss from the pure quintessence of the plane, it stands to reason that the creation of these offspring is not a result of biology but divine creation in which case infancy would be irrelevant.

That said, it makes Ragathiel an interesting point of discussion as he is LG but was was born in Hell to a LE and N pair of demigod level powers, but said LE once being an angel may account for the oddity.

Im pretty sure DR doesn’t negate falling damage. That’s not an attack.

Elemental Resistances use the same "attack" language as DR and James Jacobs has stated that they should protect from environment damage even though they aren't attacks. Using the same logic, DR also works on environmental damage, which includes falling.

Yep, DR only applies with certain attacks. A fall isn't an attack, DR doesn't apply.

- To reach the ground after a re-entry from orbit, one would also need thermal shielding. Without it, the question of damage from the fall is immaterial^^ -

If you make the logical addendum to the falling damage rules for the friction of reentry, that is true.

If the character takes no lethal falling damage, they do not gain the prone condition. If they did not have the prone condition, they would not gain it just because they were grabbed.

This is one of my favorite rules because DR or other methods of negating fall damage can result in a character falling at normal speed by landing gracefully on their feet after an accidental slip only by dent of ignoring the damage. So natural werewolves, on average, can fall another 20ft further than normal humans and not land prone. And an alchemist with ragdoll mutagen (converts fall damage to non lethal damage) and mummification (immune to nonlethal damage) discoveries can not only survive reentry from orbit, but lands on his feet like nothing happened.

Paizo's early monsters were prone to problems like this. The Primordial Demon from Hall of Drunken Heroes is another incorporeal creature with a strength score. However, they triple down on it by also giving it natural armor AND a grab ability that was absolutely intentional as it had another ability that it could only do on grappled opponents. Neither of these abilities are valid for incorporeal creatures.

Figments work because similar to how eidolons worked before the Unchained version. Difference is it calls forth a creature from their own mind rather than something from the void. Figments aren't illusions like the subschool figment. They're part of their master's imagination given physical form by will, magic, overactive imagination, or whatever. This physical form can do all the things you described. But, once the master looses consciousness, the binding keeping them in the material plane breaks and they get pulled back into their master's mind, possibly with messy results, possibly not as magic often violates the law of conservation of mass along with most other physics rules.

Hexblade is a 3.5 class that, being from the same book that gave us the awful Samurai class, is only useful as a dip or prestige class entry. Duskblade is a much later class that did what Hexblade was trying to do but competently. Hexblade is also a 5E Warlock subclass.

Anyways
Iron Collar of the Unbound Coven is another item that lets one form covens.

A Iron Collar of the Unbound Coven still requires the wearer be a witch with the coven hex. It's just one of the few bypasses that allows a coven that doesn't require an actual hag that most of these methods still require. If there is already a real hag for the coven, it's unnecessary.

Will-o-wisp could make a fun villain: small, natural invisibility, relatively intelligent, IMMUNE TO MOST MAGIC, feeds on fear, doesn’t age. Through some levels in a caster class, I personally like Mesmerist, that it picked up in its years and you’ve got a fantastic “man” behind the curtain that could easily be playing multiple sides for years to cause chaos and fear for it to feed on.

I think Deathward was more useful back in the "good old days" of instant player death being a core mechanic of the game. I know Deathward was invaluable to getting the "No One Died" achievement on the Enhanced Edition of Baldurs Gate 2. Now that player generation takes so long and deaths are far less common, I doubt Death Ward sees nearly as much use. So much of it is nostalgia, like this thread from 2013.

God I miss 2013.

With certain campaigns it’s still a big thing. A lot of high level undead with level drain are a major threat otherwise can be negated. When you know you’re in area with undead it’s usually a good spell as it’s cheaper than having to spend multiple Restorations plus diamond dust.

I’d suggest talking to your DM on why he wants a full arcane caster. While Bard isn’t a full caster, it covers most of the bases of a general Wizard to a lessor degree.

If you must go Wizard, necromancers specializing with minions could allow you to indirectly get on the front lines. And bloody skeletons make fun scouts since they can be used to set off traps and as long as the damage isn’t from positive energy or holy water they just get back up and ready to serve again in an hour. Just only use the corpses of the bad guys and explain to the Paladin that your pets are helping protect innocent lives as penance for their crimes in life and you’ll be keeping a tight leash on them.

If a full caster that isn’t arcane, Cleric and Druid are far less squishy and can tangle on the front lines.

Samsarans are technically immortal. When their bodies die they are reborn into a new samsarans.

...

Phoenix Bloodline 20 1/24 hours you are affected by true resurrection after 1 minute.

Samsarans’ souls just move through the cycle of souls differently. They cycle on the material plane rather than going through the boneyard and other outer planes. They have a stronger connection to their past lives, but can’t really be considered the same life and thus not really immortal.

You’d be better off tracking down a soul anchor and then dying by any means other than suicide. This would result in the outsider you become after death and judgement retaining all memories of life (including class levels) which would then be immortal. And this method works for any race.

...

Phoenix Bloodline still ages and True Resurrection does NOT bring back creatures that die of old age.

Cerberi don't have darkvision, so Lunar Veil seems like a waste to use unless none of your players have darkvision either. Are you set on using Cerberi? They seem a bit weak to use against level 14 characters. A level 16 cleric should be more than just a kennel master, he should be THE master. Summon Monster 8 lets you get 1d4+1 Erinyes Devils, cast this twice then use Deeper Darkness to blind the party while the Erinyes can just shoot them up freely, and Entangle them with their ropes. They can dispel the darkness, but the Erinyes have a higher AC, HP, and DR than the Cerberi, while being able to fly. 2 castings will get you about 6 Erinyes, one for each character. Each Erinyes can just pick one guy each to attack, so all 6 characters are under attack every round at the same time as everyone else. Who do the party help first? Which Erinyes do they focus on taking down first? Choices, Choices [insert evil laugh]

If encounters have been easy for them, and they're already a high level, I say put some fear into them, make them sweat for once. Boss fights should not be easy. Your cleric is Invisible, singing evilly in the magical darkness and casting buffs while the party gets pelted by arrows from laughing air borne devils that can see just fine in magical darkness and thru any illusions wizards could use to hide themselves. I suggest giving the players a way to retreat out of this encounter. It sounds like none of your players has come close to dying, now is the time to change that.

This was only a miniboss, the real one has another nasty trick up his sleeves. I just ran the fight this weekend, gave the players a good sweat even with Cerberi. Nearly killed a spellcaster (second time this dungeon) and got one of the front liners knocking on deaths door for the first time in three books and got another not far behind. They managed to force him to retreat and dispatched his goodbye present with little trouble.

The advantage of Cerberi is the large number of attacks at full bonus. (4 with Fervor not counting rend attacks.) While Cerberi don’t have True Sight, scent is a decent alternative in tight quarters like where this fight took place.

One of the players had several levels back trounced a Erinyes in a 1v1 fight so I didn’t think much of them. But summoning Erinyes may be what he does next time, the area he was in was tight quarters limiting the advantages of flight. He’s going to return to ambush them as they rush to the next location so the Erinyes will be able to take advantage.

Well, I'll suggest a spellcasting contract.

This basically makes it so that you indefinitely sacrifice a spell slot (5/7/9, based on the version of the spell), and in return you can give someone else some lower levels spells.

That is a minor benefit, allowing a melee character get a few options (which may or may not help in this fight)... but the spell also has a benefit of buffing the cleric while the contract is in effect. The text of the spell appears to have a typo, so I am unsure if you get an armor bonus to attack bonus... but you DEFINITELY get a save and skill bonus.

This is +2 if you use the lvl 5 version of the spell, and +3 if you use the level 7 version. +5 if you raise the character up to level 17 and give up a lvl 9 spell slot.

Because your cleric might not survive long enough to use all those high level spell slots... you might as well take this option for the buff. It is a precast buff that you can easily write off (since he is a cleric to Asmodeus- he is very, very likely to use this kind of spell at some point, and the party just happened to find him while it is active.)

Great spell! this works great both flavorwise and mechanically. Party will be surprised when an obvious brute later on cast a spell.

Sorry for the double post... I am new to the forums and could not figure out how to edit my last post.

If you really want to make your players cry you could have your cleric worship Dispater instead of Asmodeus:
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Dispater
Dispater has the trickery Domain, but also has the Rulership portfolio. This allows you to use Variant Channeling (Rulership) with your negative energy channeling, which adds a 1-round daze effect:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/variant-channeling/
Dont blame me if your players ragequit ;)

You might also want to consider the Herald Caller archetype over the Evangelist:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/archetypes/paizo-cleri c-archetypes/herald-caller-cleric-archetype/

Both are pretty strong... The herald caller lets you exclude your summons from channel damage (if you wish... this whole approach may not work as well with your cerberai healing idea though). More importantly, you can sponaneously cast summons instead of inflict spells. You also get a couple of extra skills, and two useful bonus feats (effectively three, sinc you can skip SF: Conj too)

This approach means you probably just spend every round summoning more minions until they can find you, and use your swift actions for dazing channels one your invisibility is broken

This is still meant to be fun, stun locks aren't fun. Besides, a successful save negates the daze and the party has fantastic will saves.

As for Herald Caller, it does not stack with Evangelist which is needed to allow the Cerberi to even possibly hit the front liners as otherwise, it's fishing for 20s and being meat shields. +4 hit and +1d6+4 damage per hit adds up fast with multiple allies that get 3 attacks per round. And that's not counting damage from successful rends.

I agree the official WHW is a poorly designed archetype that shoves a grappler build onto a 1/2 BAB chassis that was possibly never intended for a serious PC.

As for the homebrews you provided:

There's an extra space in that first link is causing it to be broken. But once I was able to examine it, I was pleased with what I saw. It does a decent job of mixing the base witch with a bit a monk and its own natural flavor. She's not a great frontliner and her damage will quickly be outpaced by true DPS, but able to toss out an occasional spell of hex to help. It sacrifices a lot of its power as a spellcaster to gain the ability to become decent at grappling. Going to have to be very careful about spell selection with Magus advancement in spells. But if your GM rules hair can be used to deliver touch spells, that can be made up for. Considerably more powerful than the official WHW, but I think it's still a bit underpowered compared to the base class but that's actually the goal with designing most archetypes.

For WHW2, it's a mess. With spells, it gets the worse aspects of both Magus and Sorcerer as you combine few known spells with even fewer spells per day. The awkward cramming of abilities stolen from other classes as options are mediocre attempts to cover for the very limited abilities of this version. This version peaks at 5th level before becoming and natural attack rules make Combat Reflexes a required feat.

In the past, I've countered this build with ranged attackers be they archers or casters both make fantastic means of getting past this build. Place a couple of defense focused guys in a shield wall and a 10ft wide hallway becomes a strong chokepoint to keep him back while the ranged fighters plink at him from a relatively safe distance. This does require enemies to have a few feats to reduce penalties of it.

Also, as the party gets stronger, higher CR nonhumanoid monsters tend to be bigger so many of them have reach equal to or greater than his.

I'm currently running an AP and as written the players have been trouncing most as written encounters without a sweat and it has been agreed to allow me to beef up and add a few homebrewed nasties. After coming across an idea in a summon focused cleric build, I've tweaked and fleshed a bit to make it even nastier but want to make sure it looks appropriate for a the party and if I should make any additional adjustments

The party consists of 5 level 14 PCs and one level 12 cohort at the time of the encounter. (Not sure I want to give details on party make up since I don't want to make something that is gear to fighting them to specifically. But I will say they are specialized in fighting undead with a strong secondary focus on Evil creatures.) Character is built off a high fantasy array and has the wealth of an equivalent level PC.

Main things I'm looking at are spells and additional equipment to help bolster his allies. But I'm interested in any other suggetions that people have on other parts of the build.

The Kennel Master
LE Half-Orc 16th lv Cleric of Asmodeus (Evangelist)
STR 8
DEX 14
CON 14 + 4 Belt
INT 10
WIS 14 + 2 Racial + 4 level
CHA 15

Traits: Diabolic Dabbler (+1 hit point/hit die of devils), Flames of Hell (Channel DC +1)

Domain: Trickery

1st: Sacred Summons
3rd: Spell Focus (Conjuration)
5th: Augmented Summons
7th: Superior Summoning
9th: Ferocious Summons
11th: Discordant voice
13th: Conversion Channel
15th: Quick Channel

Notable Equipment:
Phylactery Of Negative Channeling
Banner of the Ancient Kings

Tactics:
When alerted by the sounds of the combat in the previous room, he begins casting Master's Escape on an Edavagor hidden in the ceiling that he'd Gated in previously, Anti-Life Shell, Fickle Winds, Summons 1d3+1 Ferocious Cerberi, ending with by Mass Invisibility and using his Copycat power at some point during that.

He then uses a scroll of Silent Image of an ally they'd met earlier to lure them into the room and begins inspiring courage on his first turn.

After his dogs have all lost their invisibility, he cast Lunar Veil to try to regain the visual advantage for himself and his dogs.

Additional spells: Blessing of Fervor, Burning Disarm, Jolting Portent, Mass Suggestion (to hurry ahead and go rescue their friend), Confusion, Chain of Perdition, Cold Ice Strike.

As necessary, he will summon more ferocious Cerberi with standard actions and quick channeling to harm enemies while healing himself and his dogs.

Once he drops below 40 hit points, he uses a swift action to activate the Master's Escape, although he may attempt a final summon and channel first.

Hello there. I don’t know if you’re even still looking at the Paizo website let alone this thread but I have recently moved to San Angelo for a while and would like to try to get a PFS group started if you or any other San Angelo locals are interested.

I’m partial to the Mirror Witch archetype since it trades only the familiar, so no losing any hexes or such, for one that act like an intelligent magic item so most AoE spells won’t affect it if you’re carrying it. I also find the abilities it grants are generally more useful than the animal familiars with the exception of the bonus granted by some animals.

And on the small risk of it getting stolen, carry a scroll of Irriseni Mirror Sight to help track the thief down.

Alternately, if you need to have an animal and the worst happens, if you have an ally that can cast Raise Animal Companion, or carry a scroll to UMD. The spell alone cost just 1000gp of diamond dust.

A bombchucker adds 10' range to any splash weapon, which includes bombs. Not bad for a cheap mundane item. Also once you hit about level five, most creatures' touch AC's are bad enough that the range increment penalties aren't much to worry about.

As an alchemist, you can also buff up your AC to being one of the best on the field, especially with a dex mutagen boosting offense and defense.

Yet it’s stated females are usually stronger than the males. Not only are you trying to give different stat bonuses to different sexes when the only race that has that is sexually dimorphic to the point that they look like different species, but you’re doing it backwards from the lore.

There is a reason there is the options for races in the race build can have bonuses to two physical stats, some races are physically specialized. It makes since for gnolls to have bonuses to both Str and Con for both sexes. They are all warriors and undergo brutal harsh living conditions feasting on scraps regardless of sex, all need a good Con. And birth isn’t the only brutal rituals they have.

Also most Barbarians have a Str focus in addition to Con and gnoll leaders (again mostly females) are usually Rangers.

stuff posted above wrote:

]If your DM rules that a physical Kenetic Blast counts as an instantaneous conjuration then you can fire into an Antimagic Field just like a wizard can fire Acid Arrow into one.

Not so sure this would work as advertised. This is not an instantaneous spell, the magic is holding the arrow (made of acid) together and it might just get suppressed for its duration which is probably less than that of the AMF. But YMMV, might be worth a shot since darn few things will work (and assuming some clarifying FAQ isn't floating around I've missed). Even the fact it is instantaneous is not necessarily sufficient. Magic is still used in the creation of the effect and that can't happen within the AMF. Just means when the next creatures action occurs (next initiative point) the magic is no longer there or required for the effect to remain/continue (my thinking anyway).

Yes there are some high level spells that will work in an AMF. It's a pretty short list with only 2 immobile Walls and an immobile Sphere being a certainty, the rest the GM would have to say work. Forcecage,...

It’s explicit in the wording of Antimagic Field that they do work.

An invisible barrier surrounds you and moves with you. The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it. Time spent within an antimagic field counts against the suppressed spell’s duration.

Summoned creatures of any type wink out if they enter an antimagic field. They reappear in the same spot once the field goes away. Time spent winked out counts normally against the duration of the conjuration that is maintaining the creature. If you cast antimagic field in an area occupied by a summoned creature that has spell resistance, you must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against the creature’s spell resistance to make it wink out. (The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)

A normal creature can enter the area, as can normal missiles. Furthermore, while a magic sword does not function magically within the area, it is still a sword (and a masterwork sword at that). The spell has no effect on golems and other constructs that are imbued with magic during their creation process and are thereafter self-supporting (unless they have been summoned, in which case they are treated like any other summoned creatures). Elementals, undead, and outsider are likewise unaffected unless summoned. These creatures’ spell-like or supernatural abilities may be temporarily nullified by the field. Dispel magic does not remove the field.

Two or more antimagic fields sharing any of the same space have no effect on each other. Certain spells, such as wall of force, prismatic sphere, and prismatic wall, remain unaffected by antimagic field. Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this.

Should a creature be larger than the area enclosed by the barrier, any part of it that lies outside the barrier is unaffected by the field.

Instantaneous conjugations can be fired into an AMF, they just can’t originate inside one. The reason why is that magic just calls the object into being, once created they are self supporting.

If I use Fabricate to make a snowman, the final creation isn’t magic and is unaffected by an AMF. Similarly if I use the Snowball spell to make a super cold chunk of ice and throw it at a creature, the creation and initial throw are magic, but it’s still real ice with inertia once it hits the edge of the field.

The 2nd and 3rd parts of the Fiend trilogy: 2-10 Fury of the Fiend, 5-11 Fate of the Fiend. (0-22 Fingerprints of the Fiend have no Hellknight but gives more context to the site.)

Hellknight play a big part in is 7-25 Orders from the Gate. the Hellknight are allies and can allow free retraining to the Hellknight Prestige class.

There are a couple others, but they usually are very minor.

Antimagic is designed to neuter magic based classes. This includes Keneticist.

If your DM rules that a physical Kenetic Blast counts as an instantaneous conjuration then you can fire into an Antimagic Field just like a wizard can fire Acid Arrow into one.

Once again, you’re making on adverage female gnolls less physically capable than males. That is explicitly not the case. Unlike humans and many other species, gnoll females on adverage are physically stronger. You need to get the human bias out of your head. If you want to put a penalty someplace other than Int, put it in Cha then. Scaring from the ritualistic birthing process could have impacted their good looks and damaged their view of themselves.

Since gnolls are such a brutal culture, it also makes sense for them to be build using either specualized or flexible stats to allow for two physical stat bonuses.

Ability to simultaneously appear on two sides at once would give flanking.

The most basic thing would be to give them a permanent or Blink effect. Works very well early on as it would take a 4th dimensional being a bit of getting used to operating on 3 so the 20% miss chance on them but 50% on players makes since. Refining tech could allow for improvement to a Displacement like effect. (Except true seeing doesn’t negate it.) Could combine it with the above so that the trail they leave a copy in each square it moves through that functions like Mirror Image in that the chance of hitting is 1/number of squares the creature moved that turn.

Consider using folded space as this dimension as well. Stepping through this extra dimension to move about the battlefield from point A to B in a manner similar to teleporting but not requiring any more difficulty than a regular move action. This would allow them to bypass difficult terrain or obstacles, avoid AoOs, and get into tactically advantageous positions. This could even be used to allow a creature to reach through this dimension to use melee attack on distant enemies while keeping its distance. If I recall there is a way an Arcanist can do something like that.

Maybe with Shot on the Run or Ride by Attack they can make a detour and attack a player at point C while they’re at it. Another possibility is allowing a stealth opposed by player perception,or maybe even Knowledge (Planes or Engineering) to catch them flat footed. Or just allow for free action feinting when this is ability is used.

If you go with a time dimension aspect, (which is a different beast from non-euclidian geometry) maybe allow a creature to rewind time so many times a day to reroll a missed attack against the player or undo a negative effect that happened to themselves if the player that performed the action fails a Will save. Akin to an improved and retroactive version of the Witch’s Fortune hex. This could even be done to allow a creature “resurrect” itself by having it just rewind time on itself so that the killing blow just never happened. Unless it’s supposed to be a recurring rival that grows with the PCs, I’d limit this resurrection to a certain number of times. Otherwise to force the rival to stay dead, an artifact, bit of their tech, or something similar may be needed.

It could cause sickening or confusion effects by subjecting PCs to them. But that’s more of a harkening to Lovecraft’s inability to understand math than actual non-euclidian traits.

I recommend splitting up some of these abilities so that different mooks have different powers. Different types of troops with different jobs.

Azothath wrote:

buy dull gray ioun stones and paint them to resemble active stones.

Paint some glyphs on it them and add an Explosive rune.
Then cast heightened Continual Flame on it.
It'll be rare when activated but you can be pretty sure it'll blast someone you wanted to blast that is examining the stone.

there are lists of these kind of things going back 20 years...

If you have an explosive rune floating near your head, don't you get blown up when someone reads it? Last I checked, explosive rune was an area of effect.

Even better, I know there’s a PFS scenario where there are orcs with Explosive Runes tattooed on themselves as suicide bombs that players can try to safely read them from a distance to make them go off prematurely with a moderately high perception to make them out through gaps in their armor.

It’s PFS, so the rules are played fast and loose but...

That said, Explosive Runes on a dominated creature’s undershirt is a valid way to recreate this with a smaller premature explosion risk.

Perhaps then female Gnolls could get a boost like the difference between Drow and Drow nobles, of they are to be specifically more powerful.

I’d say best to just not make sexually dimorphic stats without major differences like the lashunta have. Key word here is “tend.” Stat wise, Paizo has not seperated gnolls by gender so I’d say best not to either. There’s a large can of worms the spills into real life here I’m not going to touch with the standard starting gear 10ft pole.

Not to mention there already is a Drow Noble equivalent out there in the form of flinds which are gnolls created by selected breeding. Going by race builder rules, it requires 52rp to make a flind so even more mosterous than the Drow noble’s already impressive 43rp.

It’s only that high using the silly built on 10s and 11s philosophy. Frankly the fact that a Paizo’s race builder gnoll creation does NOT follow this philosophy means it’s not a hard and fast rule.

Smash from the air already deal with targeted spells (as they usually require an atk roll). AoE spells are more difficult, but I believe there is a shield that gives yiu evasion vs them. At the very least, a Spellbane shield gives res bonus 3 vs spells and reduces their hp dmg by 10 (its not DR or Resistance).

You overestimate the number of rays and other attack roll spells. Plenty of the nastiest like Dominate Person can’t be deflected by Smash from the Air.

And Evasion only works for reflex, which tend to be the least dangerous effects on successful save.

Tower shield isn’t going to block spells that target you and area effects are uneffected since they don’t target only you. It could help with a charge, but there are better uses for your first standard action.

Just so you know, gnolls, just like hyenas, have larger stronger females than males. It makes no sense for males to get a STR bonus and be physically focused and females have a physical penalty.

Gnoll packs are matriarchal because female gnolls tend to be larger, more aggressive, and more cunning than males.

Alchemist is probably the best thing for strict AC. They have just about every defensive spell you can want plus light armor proficiently. An Internal Alchemist also gains Uncanny Dodge and gains resistance and eventual immunity to disease as well as poison at the lose of damage with bombs and other splash weapons. Combined with Mummification discovery and you have a list of several full on immunities to some of the nastier effects.

However, alchemist have poor will saves and Dex mutagen exacerbates this problem as it penalizes Wisdom. Traits and/or resist cloaks are needed to shore up this weakness.

Latrans wrote:

Concentration checks at 16th level are a joke so don’t rely on casters provoking by casting. And most casters are probably going to have good initiative at this level so you may not be going first. Something as simple as Greater Invisibility and Quickened Fly shuts down your attacks. Your ring will run out of uses long before the Greater Invisibility does with a spell a round.

The rogue perplexes me with the rule set up. He’s probably going with something that blocks vision so he can sneak each round. Maybe Deeper Darkness centered on himself or a few Greater Invisibility scrolls.

Either of these justifies snagging a couple Antimagic Field scrolls. As a fighter, antimagic is almost always your friend.

the only thing my goggles can't see is stealth but i have pump'd it and does the scroll need an standard action to use? or can i use like a ioun stone.

Scrolls are standard action, but between that and cut from the air, you’re well protected from most things a caster can throw at you in an antimagic field.

I missed seeing the googles. Good choice, but at 16th a caster can still fry you from over the googles vision limit of 120ft since anything that’s not a touch or close spell can plink at you. Also a simple Fog Cloud will block your googles as fog is specifically stated to block the view and conjugation effects are not one of the effects that are seen through by Truesight. Combined with Fogcutting Lenses and it’s another way to have effective concealment from the googles.

Also for amount is your Spell Resistant buckler resistance? A full caster at 16th will blow through all but the highest automatically and only stopped on a natural 1 or 2 if they don’t have something to help pierce. As is, it’s mostly there to stop off the shelf items others are carrying.

Concentration checks at 16th level are a joke so don’t rely on casters provoking by casting. And most casters are probably going to have good initiative at this level so you may not be going first. Something as simple as Greater Invisibility and Quickened Fly shuts down your attacks. Your ring will run out of uses long before the Greater Invisibility does with a spell a round.

The rogue perplexes me with the rule set up. He’s probably going with something that blocks vision so he can sneak each round. Maybe Deeper Darkness centered on himself or a few Greater Invisibility scrolls.

Either of these justifies snagging a couple Antimagic Field scrolls. As a fighter, antimagic is almost always your friend.

If reasonable, I keep monsters initiatives seperate as it allows players more ability to react. I’d done enemies in groups before and a mass of ghouls were able to get into flanking and would have tore two of them apart if I hadn’t fudged a few rolls in the players’ favor. By keeping it seperate players have a chance to swap out front liners, throw up a protective buff, or do emergency healing. It makes it where that it’s not an all or nothing for some enemies, if the players don’t know about a dangerous ability they don’t identify, it lets them get hit by it just once or twice then adjust their tactics to compensate rather than get clobbered.

For groups if >6 creatures I usually swap out the monsters with troops I build based on the original creature. I admit this is more work for me up front, but less headache during the fight and tends to make filler fights (which large groups of low CRs tend to be) more memorable.

Creatures: 5d100 ⇒ (77, 17, 15, 12, 96) = 217
77. Flumph
17. Sylph
15. Ifrit
12. Teifling
96. Thri-keen

Hell yawned forth and spewed forth it's cruel breath and inhabitants upon the unsuspecting world. The vile burning winds spread across the planet leaving its surface barren everywhere it touched. The original inhabitants plead the divine for rescue from the devils. Unable to stop the armies, the gods blessed individuals with fire to withstand the heat of the scorched lands and became the Ifrit, wind to escape to the skies above in flying cities and became the Sylphs, or gave them tough exoskeletons and tough claws to escape below the surface to the cooler and easier to defend underground which became the The-keen. Unfortunately many more were captured by the devils and experimented upon to create the Teifling as a race of slaves and soldiers.

The overwhelming aura of evil from the planet attracted a race from the deep reaches of the dark tapestry. Mercifully the race that noticed it was the Flumph that reacted by quickly masking the aura from the rest of the tapestries inhabitants and sending an army on a one way trip as the masking process would cause even themselves to lose the location of the planet and never be able to find their way back. This army descended upon the planet and with the aid of a slave rebellion in the capital surrounding the Hellmouth the portal was destroyed and preventing the devils from receiving reinforcements.

This served as a rallying point and the mixed armies of the modified races united under the Flumph's banner and began to take back their world. However, the devils conspire to reopen the portal and crush the new allience.

Perform(cooking) sounds like the focus would be more on the show of the actual cooking rather than extensive knowledge of spice palettes and main ingredients or managing the kitchen.

If it's more the flair of cooking like a hibachi than I could see Diplomacy or Intimidate as either trying to impress or scare with the knife and fire play. I lean to Intimidate between these two. And the dexterity a hibachi cook needs would make sense for Slight of Hand

Broken for me as well

Heart attacks are a bit more complicated than just bpm. About 200bpm is the upper limit when things begin to go south very rapidly.

For how often, I suggest either require level 5 or 7 for the first time they can take it and another 5 levels before they can take it again.

I'm not familiar with The Modern Path so it may affect things in ways I'm not familiar with.

I like the way you incorporated flight into the races. However, you're going to need to have many instances of anti-magic to justify the power differences between the extraordinary and supernatural flight since outside antimagic fields supernatural is superior to extraordinary flight in every way.

The mutations I'm not a fan of especially since the human equivalent of secondary studies is a player choice. If the players were to get to pick what the mutation they get to start with that would be okay, but going in with a random boon that does nothing for them or worse the penalty from Heavy Build could make an already slow-moving (such as medium armor or a medium load) character even slower. I notice there seems to be an implication from the four-arm that it's possible to gain more than one possibly at a later point if this is the case then with the exception of the heavy build penalty unless additional mutations are optional.

Other than that the three races seem reasonably balanced with one another.

And I know it's fantasy, but the biology is a bit jarring. The number of chromosomes is the most easily determined piece of genetic information (so if there are more they must be hidden by magic) and 120bpm is relatively slow isn't even the bottom end of a cardio workout for all but the most elderly.

The advance player’s guide is a separate book which contains the cavalier and a few other classes. You may want to get it to better understand how they work. In the meantime you can look here for the Cavalier class details: http://www.archivesofnethys.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Cavalier

All classes require the same amount of experience to level up but there are some differences based on the class.

At each level you gain more hit points according to your class hit die. So a for a Druid you would roll a d8 and add to that your Constitution modifier. (If you have a 12 Con, it would be a +1 giving you a d8+1 each time you level up in Druid. As a cavalier, our fiancé would gain a d10 plus her Con modifier. (Many GM allow you to take average rounding up instead so 5+Con and 6+Con per level respectively.)

You also gain skill points to assign each level according to your class. 4+Intelligence modifier each level for both Druid and Cavalier.

You also get the unique class abilities for your class. Animal companions also level up at the same time as their owners.

With feats, you gain a new one each odd level (3rd,5th,7th,etc.) Some classes like Cavalier gain more as class abilities.

At every 4th level (4,8,12,etc.) you gain a additional stat point to assign to a stat of your choice. So if your strength is 12 you can increase it to 13. This wouldn’t have much of an immediate effect aside from increasing your carrying capacity. However, if you later increase it from 13 to 14. This would increase your strength modifier from a +1 to a +2 which would increase your melee attack bonus and the damage you deal with melee attacks by the same amount (increase of 1.) If you have this increase apply to your Constituion and increase your modifier it increases your hit points by another point from that point on, but it also affects all of you previous levels as well. (So if your Con imodifier increases by 1 at 8th level you gain 7 maximum hit points plus the normal amount that you would gain at level 8.)

Situational search modifiers such as a hidden door that the DC is too high for the players to find normally but later on they find a clue that hints at the door’s location and grants enough of a bonus to find it.

Also find ways to make them Unable to take 20. Start having things ambush them while searching and taking advantage of their distraction to prep and surprise them. Digging through clutter to find anything useful usually takes a couple of minutes so it takes about 40 minutes to take 20 on it. That’s plenty of time for the other monsters to either get curious where their allies went and wander in. Also many of their buffs will wear out in only a few rooms if they keep taking so long. Four piles of refuse to sift through and that’s three hours of Mage Armor gone when taking 20.

I’m not saying my comment is the right way to think about it, but the fact the FoM is hard to balance/adjudicate tells me something is wrong.

This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web

That’s pretty wild. If FoM trumps dominate person, where is the line drawn? Pit spells, walls? What about sleep? That impedes movement.

Either this spell is the be all end all and most spells are useless against it, or maybe the wording of FoM is off a bit. I’m content with ruling that enchantments do not impede movement simply because it alters a persons desire to want to move. No different than a high diplomacy check... unless that would also be trumped by this spell.

Nobody is saying Dominate Person is trumped by FoM except in flawed reductio ad absurdem examples. The line is ability to move normally, not your choice in how you move. You still move normally but not necessarily the actions you would normally choose. Most enchantment don’t impede movement, Hold Person is one of the few that do. And again, there is nothing in Hold Person that says the target chooses not to act.

Sleep is a bit closer, but FoM doesn’t protect because unlike Hold Person, the mechanics are explained as target is asleep not paralyzed. FoM doesn’t protect against sleep just like it doesn’t protect against staggering or stunning. By your agurment of how enchantments work, elementals are susceptible Sleep and its kin because they are “choosing” to fall asleep even though they are otherwise stated to be immune to sleep effects.

As for when spells like Create Pit and such aren’t protected against because the spell itself isn’t affecting the target but instead it’s the secondary affects like most conjurations that spell resistance doesn’t work on. (FoM still works against Web because it’s a grapple.)

As some of you are saying where does it stop if it trumps Hold Person, I would like to just also drop on the considerations of if FoM gets rid of armor speed penalties, and of difficult terrain issues, both of which are physical and yet, I have been told are not prevented by FoM.

Armor penalties and difficult terrain do still affect a person under FoM. Interestingly nonmagical effects aside from grappling and attacking underwater penalties are not protected against by FoM. So being tied up by a rope holds you but a rope golem fails automatically with its grabs.

@diego rossi: I think you might be wrong. By your interpretation, FoM overcomes any spell that limits the players ability to move their character. Dominate Person, for example, impedes the player's ability to move their PC, therefore is overcome by FoM.

So while I agree that hold person would fail, just because it uses the phrase "paralyze" and that is specifically countered by FoM, most mental condions that "impair movement" are not countered by FoM. RAW vs RAI. I think the intention is that Hold Person would work on someone subject to FoM, due to it being a mental condition, not a source of physical paralysis. But pathfinder has poor rules for situational immunities, and tends to rather take blanket immunities.

As Diego Rossi and I have stated ad nauseum, nowhere does it state FoM is limited to physical sources that prevent movement. It works on any magical effect that impedes movement. Quit hallucinating rules that don’t exist.

You are right that blanket immunities do create some strange instances as I said above with paralysis immunity that dragons and mummified alchemist have preventing Chains of Light from paralyzing them. However, I do not believe this is the case with Hold Person and FoM. I have yet to see any evidence to imply compulsions were suppose to trump FoM. Frankly, mummy dispair aura is closer to an instance of this since the victim is overwhelmed with dispair to cause the paralysis. FoM works against the emotional overload because of blanket immunity. On the other hand, Hold Person is never mechanically explained in what it mentally does to the target. I gave an example above of a mechanism Hold Person may use that would clearly be something that FoM could work against.

Using a scroll for a spell not on your list is 20+CL of the spell so DC 29 for Raise Dead.

UMD is normally a Cha check do his Int doesn’t matter unless he has pragmatic activator. (And if he does he should retrain it. A paladin’s Cha should always be better than his Int.)

The problem with Pathfinder is gods a purposefully unstated to make them a challenge players are never supposed to be able to defeat. (Which I agree with, but I’m not going to rain on anyone’s home brew campaign idea.) However, Lamashtu herself shows that powerful enough beings can threaten and even kill them. Pazuzu is a CR 32 and has gone toe to her and at least survived.

The most powerful stated Demon Lord is Orcus at 35. Theoretically Lamashtu is even higher. However, it may be possible to force her down to something the players can fight. Desna would jump at the chance to assist the reincarnation of her old mentor in getting revenge and stealing back his animal domain. Additionally Pazuzu could be either tricked or convinced into assisting the PCs although he would turn on them the moment he thought he could steal her animal domain powers or that the power he could steal from the PCs would allow him to do so.

Up until the actual point of the showdown with a Lamashtu herself, it could be stealing artifacts connected to Lamashtu and purifying and absorbing the energy to regain fragments of his former power. Artifacts may be guarded by guardians with mythic ranks as well.

Also is anyone the reincarnation of Ithys? If so there may be assistance in a very unusual place, Asmodeus. He still has the spear that killed Ithys and according to some interpretations murdering Ithys may have been the only evil act he ever regretted. He may be able to be convinced to assist a reincarnated Ithys, especially with something like slaying the most powerful demon in existence. (He already loathes demons, so it would be in his nature to be willing to want Lamashtu dead. Especially if he were to get to lecture Ithys about how free will is why these demons exist.)

Latrans wrote:

While it is a cool concept, the Rageshifter is a poorly designed archetype that is nearly unplayable.

1) They gain the bonuses of a barbarian’s rage and increased sized damage dice but no size based bonus to STR or Con. Unlike enlarge person, it does not grant a bonus to strength but still inflicts the penalties to attacks and AC. The only benefit to as written is that they don’t gain the typical Dex penalty.

2) As written there is no scaling. If it was meant to scale the writers, editors, and FAQ people afterwards have all overlooked it. Losing defensive instinct alone made this a serious loss.

I agree that this archetype gets in exchange for what it gives up is far from fair. Also note that the enlargement prevents you from wearing normal armor and takes a full round while provoking to activate but only last for rounds per level. This means that it’s too short to use it before a fight starts thus you waste your first round to enlarge. And once you do finally gain enough rounds of frenzy to last longer than a fight he has to make a will save or possibly attack allies while wasting precious rounds of frenzy.

And don’t forget, the slams bypass the far less common problem of hardness of objects and never count as even magic without an Amulet of Mighty Fist.

Like the Brute before it, this pseudo-Hulk is worthless.

Good point about the slam replacing claws and trading hardness for bypassing DR. That's another big loss. What is frustrating to me is that the developers haven't gone back and fixed these archetypes even though people on the boards have put forth a plethora of fixes that could make this archetype and the oozemorph not only viable but fun to play.

Frankly Paizo rushed of the Shifter class. The entire thing needs to go back and be redesigned.