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I wasn’t initially a fan of Name keeper shaman, giving up familiar is a big hit and the spells and scrolls abilities are pretty underwhelming. But Versatile Hex is kind of a huge upgrade over wandering hex. It’s not restricted to spirit hexes, which means it can do the unsworn shaman hex stuff...basically you get Craft Wondrous and Brew Potion as bonus feats, along with being able to switch out your Witch Feat on a daily basis. And if you are lore, you still have the option of switching Arcane Enlightenment daily (although if you are using versatile hex both for witch hex and enlightenment, you wouldn’t be able to use both the same day until 14).

I would think you would use the Monster Cohort rules, and I’d estimate an imp as a 5th level cohort from the comps. I would expect it to stop being a familiar once you took Leadership for it - I’m not aware of rules specifically for that, but there are rules for taking your animal companion as a cohort, and in that case it definitely stops being a companion when it becomes a cohort.

You can get the school back with Opposition Research eventually. You end up paying out 1 feat, and getting back both the aura and one of the best feats in the game (improved familiar). Real problem is that Sacred Summons isn’t that great, and usually Acadamae Graduate is just better.

Let's say I took a level in cleric, to get the aura. From then on I take levels in wizard. Now I have the aura and sacred summons, and am a wizard. Would my caster level always be one level lower than my character level, or would it be the same as my character level because the cleric is also gaining a level as a caster?

J

i really don’t think you want to dip for aura; as above, Pact Wizard (not the silly one) archetype gives the aura + improved familiar feat for essentially the cost of a Wizard feat.

Dipping into other classes is very painful for casters in PF1.

Cavall wrote:

Lucy_Valentine wrote:

"In addition it leads the way in stealing OTHER peoples summons and making them your own. "

How do you do that bit?

With the feat tattoo conversion. You touch the summoned creature, make it a tattoo, then later on roll to have control over it.

Works great when used to take the creature away, you kill the summoner and theres no roll to contest it. Even at once a day this is a great way to steal summons from a battle.

I’m not sure that works.

Quote:

As a standard action, you can touch a single creature that you’ve summoned, instantly transforming it into a magical tattoo on your body.

If you didn’t summon the creature, I don’t think you can use the ability on it.

But in general, this is a good way to have a creature ready when needed.

you are quoting tattoo attunement, tattoo conversion is the one that steals (attunement is a prereq for it). Defeinitely a neat chain I hadn’t been aware of; gives standard action options for summoners from some other classes that don’t normally have options (sorcerer, shaman, maybe oracle; sacred summons is extremely limited as well, so I’d look at this for a cleric as well).

Depends on how much material he has access to. With lots of sources, sacred tattoo isn’t strong past the first few levels because you can get luck bonuses to saves through other sources, I.e., dwarf with Fate’s Favored and a horseshoe or whatever.

With few sources, Steel Soul might be out. Same with Fate’s Favored. In general I think Steel Soul dwarf with Fate’s Favored and a horseshoe is going to be as strong a starting point for saves as you can get though.

Deep shaman is a pretty large buff to the waves spirit in an aquatic campaign. Albeit speaking as someone who hasn’t played a shaman in an aquatic campaign. Permanent swim speed and water breathing access at level 2 instead of 8 seems like a big deal. Tacking on the ‘fatigued’ condition to one of your unlimited use/no save hexes seems pretty good. Tacking on a ‘knock prone’ condition using the scaling DC to your spirit abilities is pretty nice. Tripling the damage and quadrupling the area of your torrent spirit is significant. Impact is obviously a big upgrade to quenching. It’s kind of ‘Unchained Waves Sprit’, “the first version was bad, let’s make it a lot better.”

Straight answer is probably no.

But one thing to note is that while you clearly can’t Versatile Design a sword into a bow or a bow into the heavy blades group, it’s not officially clear how Versatile Design interacts with weapon groups that include both melee and ranged weapons (e.g., Thrown, Monk). Maybe no weapons can be modified into those groups, maybe all weapons can be, or maybe Paizo has an official list of which groups are considered melee and which have been deemed ranged locked in their safe.

And I wouldn’t suggest this except trying to build longbow/long sword is a pretty sub optimal starting point, and it appears you are doing it for character reasons. And Martial Mastery doesn’t come online until 16th level. But, if you Versatile Designed both to count as monk weapons, Martial Mastery would work for you, assuming all your feats are selecting monk weapons at that time.

your reading assumes the sentence means the same thing if it was reversed, i.e., “when you make a melee attack with your warhammer, you can deliver a stored touch spell with a successful hit.”

But there’s a fairly standard construction for abilities, and order matters for them. “When you are [doing thing A], you can add on [thing B]”.

In this situation, when you are [delivering a touch spell with your warhammer as a free action as part of the cast of the spell], you can [do it as part of a melee attack with the warhammer]”

Or maybe not. It’s certainly not worded clearly, and it doesn’t use spellstrike templating. But looking through previous threads, it appears most people have sided with the spellstrike interpretation, and there isn’t official word.

Yes, you keep the normal bonus feats. The bloodline section does not say that it alters or replaces the bonus feats class feature, and the sentence that says you don’t get bonus feats includes the words “from your bloodline”, albeit separated but it’s clear the context for the bonus feats is what you do and do not get from your bloodline.

Line is nice when you have allies. You can almost always hit two with a line, and usually without getting any friendlies.

Hateful Rager? Favored Enemy is a good class feature when it works.

Shield spell? It’s in the defense subdomain. Warhammer isn’t a great weapon to try to leverage weapon damage dice tho.

Generally people will agree that crowd control is a more effective approach than damage from a druid (or most other casters). Ball lightning plus dazing spell comes online at level 11 with metamagic reduction; a lot of campaigns* end one way or another before getting to that level and if you are waiting until then for your build to function it’s not going to be much fun. Dazing spell is pretty powerful though once you can use it.

*really the vast majority

Pact Wizard (FF) also meets the aura prerequisite for sacred summons.

UnMonk gets 1.5 as normal, which doesn’t include unarmed strikes (dragon style is for unarmed strikes).

I’d rate wildshape as maybe the 4th or so most valuable class feature in PF1, after spellcasting, eidolon, and possibly fighter bonus feats, but above hexes, sneak attack, etc. ton of both utility and straight power there (pounce is kind of the holy grail of PF1 melee combat, among 50 or so other things), but I understand it’s not going to be evryone’s cup of tea.

There's creative character building and then there's level dipping in classes that should be character defining for a minor mechanical advantage.

Taking levels in fighter is fine, that just represents improving your martial training but dipping 2 levels in Paladin and 1 in Oracle, 2 classes with backgrounds that should heavily define your character is munchkining. It's when any semblance of a character is thrown out for mechanics.

But all that aside I would advise they stick with Druid for simple enjoyment. As a new player it will be much more satisfying to get access to those higher level spells and take the caster archetype that secret wizard recommends. As a caster Druid it won't all be blasting, you will be want to be dropping summons, walls, entangles and buffs.

mechanical aspects do bias my view on these things though. If someone says “I have this character concept that is pretty sub optimal in PF1 and I want it to be playable”, I’m going to be pretty ok with them using whatever tools they need to make it work. And topically, having a druid that happens to have a magic empowering bloodline is pretty easy to work with from an RP standpoint (I’m not a fan of the monk dip from any perspective though). The whole Eldritch Heritage feat line exists because bloodlines can add good background to a lot of different characters.

When someone says “I plan to build a character based on what is generally known to be an unbalanced mechanic and optimize it with no regard to character justification*” that’s where my munchkin sense starts tingling.

*they usually phrase it differently

Lightning doesn’t appear to be an available Storm Druid subdomain.

A storm druid must choose the Air or Weather domain, or the Cloud, Storm, or Wind subdomain.

The one level dip of sorcerer is a common option in guides for blaster wizards, not clear to me why it would not be a legitimate option for a blaster druid. I mean, yes blasting is sub optimal and druids are sub optimal for blasting, but once you decide to go that way, sure, why not. The monk level is pretty crippling though.

It was rated “-2/-2” in the archetype rating thread, which is the worst possible score for an archetype and generally indicates the archetype should not be used by PCs.

I agree with Mysterious Stranger that if the goal of Cha is skill checks, Int is simply better because of the extra points. Topically, Signifer gets Diplomacy and Intimidate as class skills. And I think there are ways to add Int instead of Cha to those skill checks. There are occasionally flat Cha checks for certain things, and there’s not much you can do for those other than be a Cha class, but they aren’t common and I’m not sure if they are present in that AP or not.

Some ways to help with spell diversity on a sorcerer would be (some of these are incompatible with each other, some aren’t very good for your Signifer, and usually I’ll make a rules error on a list like this):
(1) favored class bonus spells (1 known / level)
(2) mongrel mage (switch bonus spells daily)
(3) razmiran priest - cleric spell list through items
(4) pages of spell knowledge - 1 spell per page
(5) ring of spell knowledge - 1 spell per ring
(6) the paragon surge / improved Eldritch heritage: arcane trick - 1 extra spell know. For a few minutes each day
(7) mnemonic vestment - cast a spell as if known from a scroll you have
(8) robes of arcane heritage - add four levels for the purpose of bloodline, which is a thing if you are 5th or higher arcane bloodline (put it on at some point each day)
(9) pathfinder savant - add spells known
(10) loremaster / secret of magical discipline - cast. Any. Spell. (I can’t find the “Any Spell”!)
(11) shadow spell nonsense - I’m sure it’s good if you optimize for it.

I’m sure lots of other stuff too, that’s off the top of my head.

Of these, I would recommend 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10. One level of Loremaster and you can grab as many Any Spells as you want (well, one per feat). Figure get to at least level 6, arcane bloodline, then 1 level loremaster and then Signifer as much as you want. The robes are cost prohibitive til mid-level, and it’s possible I’m misreading something, but you should be able to add a different spell to your list each day with that.

Charisma is mechanically associated with spontaneous casting in pathfinder, so that’s not an easy ask. Sorcerers can be built with a ton of spell diversity though.

That seems like a weird interpretation but

Arcane spells that do not appear on the wearer’s class list are treated as one level higher for all purposes (storage and casting).

If his interpretation isn’t right, I don’t know how to handle this. Here, whether or not a spell can be stored in a ring is a function of the wearer’s caster class, not the ‘teacher’, which doesn’t work unless the teacher always has to be the wearer as well.

I wasn’t forgetting it, but the vestigial arm FAQ doesn’t really touch two handed weapons. You could make two attacks with two arms, now you are only making two attacks with four arms, what’s the problem? In context with the many topical dev forum posts, it plugs up some munchkinny holes (“sure two handed people only have two hands of effort, but that clearly doesn’t apply to my alchemist!”), but I think the basic answer is ‘per faq, you have two hands of effort, and the first great sword swing takes both.’

I think the official ruling is ‘that doesn’t work, because hands of effort FAQ.’ Also,

The intent is that you have an extra arm for holding stuff, not to turn you into a double-greatsword-wielding maniac.

RAWmonger wrote:

EDIT: Although that may be intended for Brawler's Flurry, since most (maybe every, i'm not going to check) of the close weapons are light weapons. And light weapons generally have lower dice than one-handed or two-handed, as a way to lessen the potential impact of using Brawler's Flurry with larger weapons... something to think about.

Then again, the description of Brawler's Flurry has rules for what happens to the strength bonus if you hold a weapon with two hands, which is only a concern if you use one-handed or two-handed. And since you can also Flurry with Monk weapons, there's plenty of bigger weapons available.

CMonk's Flurry also works as TWF, but I've never seen anyone argue that you'd take a -4 Penalty to attack when using a Temple Sword.

the context I originally saw someone post that flurry with a single non light weapon would get an extra -2 was related to core monk two handing a temple sword. I don’t think most people apply that penalty, but I wasn’t able to figure out why he was wrong.

I’ve seen it posted that the offhand flurry attacks still must be light weapons to avoid the extra -2 penalty.

Point blank shot is prereq for rapid shot, which is worthwhile if you want to be a relevant range combatant.

Shield focus + unhindering shield gives you buckler + falchion / bow / reach weapon.

As above, dodge and cleave aren’t optimal choices. Also as above, all bow all the time is probably a stronger build, but falchion/bow is a perfectly adequate approach to fighter. Quick Draw is nice for switch hitting.

What level are you, and what kind of golem would you make?

More specifics would help. A CR6 clockwork soldier costs 37000 to craft, and WBL at 7 is 23000. And it would basically be a traffic cone against a relevant enemy.

Max CR is player level minus 1?

Where is he getting NPCs from?

Also, core and unchained monk both require lawful and core and unchained barb require non-lawful. There’s archetypes that dodge those, but you would need to pick chained vs. unchained for each. This is multiclass, not gestalt? About how many levels of each are you thinking?

Craft wondrous. Any enchant that was not a standard amulet ability would be a custom item. Enchanting a slotted item with an ability associated with a different slot is sort of discouraged by the custom item rules.

an eagle shaman druid can use wild shape to take the form of a Medium eagle (as if applying the giant creature simple template to a Small eagle), and can use wild shape to take the form of a Huge roc (as if applying the young creature simple template to a Gargantuan roc). Abilities of the assumed form are determined by which beast shape spell the wild shape ability functions as, as determined by the eagle shaman's effective druid level.

there is that.

I think Shillelagh would work with sacred weapon dice if you can figure out a way to cast it.

Note that to use the fungal template on a nature’s ally, you have to summon only one creature from a list one level lower than the spell cast, which might (/usually is) be a bigger downgrade than the template is an upgrade. So you give up wild shape pretty much for nothing there.

Animal companion version is a big boost of a kind you can’t generally get for animal companions, and if you don’t care about wild shape, sure, why not.

Without magical aid, the surface of water should be ruled as Difficult terrain; it gives when you try to push off of it with your feet. I’d be fine with it at 250 ft base speed. Edit: looks like you can’t run across difiifcult terrain, so it would need to be 625 foot base speed (with every turn a double move action).

I think dawn flower dervish is a perfectly adequate archetype for a bard that wants to melee (and actually hurt things). But being The Only Melee In The Group is a special situation that is tough to survive. d8 hp and not much in the way of defensive class abilities makes things tough.

You don't seem to have any spells known from Psychic Spell Access, and your Spell Blending choices aren't on the Psychic spell list, which they must be for a Mindblade.

just to be annoying, I would argue that Mindblades don’t get the Psychic Access class feature until 4th level so clearly its changes don’t apply to Spell Blending taken as the 3rd level arcana, but Barkskin isn’t on either the Wizard or psychic spell lists so even that sophistry doesn’t help.

Kind of topical right now, but psychometric cannot take panoplies? Might be worth mentioning in the write up either way.

Ancestral weapon is any weapon with that material. Heirloom Weapon is the one that is only with the specific item.

It is attack bonus, not damage bonus, but attack bonus is usually more valuable.

Slashing grace, fencing grace, dervish dance, etc. alternatively, the Agile enchantment is the most common approach.

What about Divine Spellcasters that have to prepare spells? Is there an item or feat for them?

clerics get domain slots instead of school slots, but similar. They also get extra slots for high ability score. Clerics can also use pearls of power. If you just flat out love having lots of slots, oracles are probably better for you.

School, high int, and ring of wizardry are the more normal answers. Most wizards have ~6 or so spells prepared at lower levels, 1 bonus at each level from their school and 1-2 extra from int at each level. Ring of wizardry isn’t worth it. If you want to be a bit more exotic, SiN specialists get 2 slots from school, and a staff or wand of mnemonic enhancer would give you as many low level slots as you want.

here.

I agree that they both count as fighter levels, it’s just questionable whether you can add them together. For example,

Chess Pwn wrote:

Hey Mark, How does having 2 sources of the same class work?

Like a fighter 3 brawler 1, does he count as fighter 4 for things like weapon specialization or is he a fighter 3 and fighter 1?

I think technically it only stacks if it says it does

mark does note that in a home game you can stack them (that’s how he would run it).

I agree that they both count as fighter levels, it’s just questionable whether you can add them together. For example,

Chess Pwn wrote:

Hey Mark, How does having 2 sources of the same class work?

Like a fighter 3 brawler 1, does he count as fighter 4 for things like weapon specialization or is he a fighter 3 and fighter 1?

I think technically it only stacks if it says it does

I think brawler and Warpriest levels technically don’t stack for fighter feats. Not to be pedantic, but it is the rules forum.