Litchfield's page

Jumping in to express my gratitude (and some surprise) at being picked on my first go around. I'm really looking forward to seeing something I wrote in print for everyone else to enjoy!

Posted this over at r/pathfinder_rpg already, but wanted to put it up here as well for those who don't frequent Reddit.

I've been working on making some new feats and would like to get some feedback on the first 20 I've completed. While some are very specific (Javelin Master) others are pretty generic (Adaptable Fortitude and Resilient Will). I wanted to spread the love around to a few different feat categories as well, so there at least one feat for combat, performance, teamwork, racial, and story.

Based on some feedback from my reddit thread, I've already noticed some issues with Reusable Components that I'll be adjusting so it doesn't scale with Int mod, so these aren't perfect by any means but that's what feedback is for!

I'm wanting to do more story, achievement, and damnation feats in my next batch because I like those but they don't always get much love.
Anyways, here is the link and please let me know what you think or of any ideas for feats you'd like to see.

Here is the link

Backing up critical fails. Roll a natural one and you have to back it up to avoid a critical fail. This works wonderful when combined with not forcing a penalty to ranged characters firing into melee combat. Critical fail? You just put an arrow into your Paladin.

I like the most of what I've read so far, but haven't gone through all the invocations yet to compare their power to equivalent Wiz/Sorc.

The first suggestion I'll make right now is moving Improved Agonizing Blast to 14th level. Currently 14th is a "dead" level, but that can be easily fixed by shifting one of the powers at 12th level and Imp. Agonizing Blast is the only one that doesn't have a set progression.

One other change I'd make is to how the invocations progress. They don't really have a set pattern (minor and master start with 1-1-2, while major starts 1-1-1) but it can be easily fixed and grant a smoother 20th span of power. I'd set the progression to 1-2-2-3-3-3-4-4-4-4-5... with 5 being the highest amount of minor invocations. Following this pattern give the Warlock 6 lesser, 5 minor, 4 major and 3 master invocations by 20th level.

Another flavor idea could be that elf-glass takes far longer to create due to how sophisticated the glassworking methods and equipment is. A single piece could take a day or more of continuous work to create, making it extremely valuable because of the extreme quality.

You can actually grant a +1 bonus to confirming criticals and in essence make it a +2 by saying that items crafted with elf-glass are always masterwork quality. That grants a +1 to hit/+1 to damage from masterwork and the additional +1 to confirm crits is just part of its special abilities.

As for pricing, you should look at increasing the prices some. I'd double the current weapon prices and adjust the prices on armor to match that of mithral.

I'll second what Aelryinth said about perception and add on to it. While replacing Track with Vigilance isn't the best choice, it really goes overboard when Vigilance is replacing four abilities. Track gives a 1/2 level bonus to Survival which is the same "power" as what Vigilance gives, meaning there is no need to remove three other abilities for it.

Thematically, it appears that you are going for a Ranger who specializes in protecting civilization. Track, Swift Tracking, Quarry and Improved Quarry all actually fit quite nicely with this idea. This is someone of noble birth who has spent a large amount of time among the forests (or other favored terrains of his youth) learning to hunt game and track bandits. Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight are a little less appropriate, but aren't a must to be changed.

Perhaps replacing Hunter's Bond with something akin to Leadership would build upon the idea that the Margrave is a leader of men defending the boundaries of civilization as opposed to a lonesome hero. Evasion and Improved Evasion could be nixed as well or replaced with an ability which enhances the Margrave's use of allies (teamwork feats as suggested earlier are a good idea).

I like the idea behind the flavor, it just needs a bit more work mechanically.

I've been working on building up some hybrid classes which represent mechanically some "flavor" builds that I have wanted to try but aren't really practical for one reason or another.

The first hybrid class I developed was the Templar, a blend of the Barbarian and Paladin. The flavor reason for this was to represent a warrior who's divine power comes from an internal fury (rage) that they harness. In essence, the Templar is the Chaotic Paladin and provides those Chaotic Good gods (or others on that spectrum) holy warriors outside of Warpriests or Clerics.

The second hybrid class is the Wildkin, a melding of the Druid and the Alchemist. I really liked the idea of an Alchemist or other "scientific" character who takes an intense interest in the study of nature and through this develops powers similar to a Druid. They aren't divinely connected to nature but have still learned how to shift their forms into beasts.

I've got both of these classes posted over on my blog and would love to get some feedback on them. I have also posted up an Iconic Story for the Templar as well if anyone wants to check that out.

And now for the links

The Templar
The Wildkin
Koranna, The Iconic Templar of Milani

Goth Guru wrote:

Basically a monster submission

If you wrote it, it's yours. Don't care if you posted it here in a homebrew thread, it hasn't been published has it?

Question relating to something being published. If I have posted something to my personal Pathfinder/D&D blog, would you still accept it or is it now considered published?

You know what, I didn't even realize there were hooks in the back of the final books. Never read completely through one before. Those would be excellent ideas.

I also like the idea of having them create connections at first level (families, friends, cohorts) and then playing out one of those if they'd like. In fact, while Leadership for everyone gets a bit unwieldy for five players at 20th level, it does provide them with NPCs of their own creation at a decent level if they didn't want to jump all the way down to 1st.

I have a group which has become attached to the PCs which they are using in a small home brew campaign which is coming to a close soon. While I've already determined that they won't be able to move on with these characters due to reaching to high a level to start anything non-home brew, it brings up a question that I can't find an answer for here.

Is it possible to run an adventure path (or modify it in some manner) so that the PCs from that campaign could resonabily move on to another adventure path? Or should I be looking at other products like modules mixed with home-brew plots to achieve such a thing? Are there any particular adventure paths which might lend themselves to such a thing easier than others?

I'd be interested in playing a Divine Hunter Paladin, probably a human. I'll work something more up later.

While I seriously doubt my group will ever get to a point where fighting a Demon Lord would be possible, one of them brought up an interesting point to me. They are an evil group and while fighting other evil is always possible fighting the forces of good is much more fun. I was curious in looking for a good equivalent to Demon Lords and couldn't really come across anything other than basic templates for angels (like the solar which only comes it at at CR in the low 20s).

Does anyone know of rules or already presented Archangels which would rival in power a demon lord? Something with a CR possibly above 30? Just a curiosity.

I'd be interested. I recently got the book and haven't had a chance to actually get a group together to play yet.

What Axl said. If you are worried about him knowing too many languages (or dislike that by level five he would be a world class linguist with 10+ languages at his disposal) you can house rule a change to linguistics. One suggestion is to separate languages into written/read and spoken therefor requiring two linguistics points for an entire language. Another is to eliminate bonus languages from linguistics altogether, making the skill more about the ability to understand common patterns in language than outright knowing languages.

Rolling for a possible Samurai, dropping one of the 4d6 rolls.

4d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 4, 4) = 15
4d6 ⇒ (4, 2, 4, 1) = 11
4d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 3, 2) = 9
4d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 6, 6) = 20
4d6 ⇒ (3, 2, 4, 4) = 13
1d3 + 15 ⇒ (2) + 15 = 17
1d10 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

So after dropping the lowest 4d6 (8) and the lowest die from the other 4d6 that give me an array of: 18, 17, 15, 14, 11, 10. That is pretty awesome.

I'll work out a full character and concept tonight or tomorrow (or whenever)

I have actually played a rogue who did something very similar to the above. Carried four or five daggers which I used and mixed in with Quick Draw. I would make a ranged attack with the dagger, quick draw another and finish off anyone in melee (or make the second throw).

You could also mix this up with a one-handed crossbow too as you could fire it, drop and quick draw and then make the attack with a melee weapon.

I allowed the undead lord in my evil campaign to use a skeletal champion and it has worked out quite well (especially wrt roleplaying as it is his brother)

So the group quite enjoyed the two puzzles and make interesting use of their NPC resources.

The first puzzle (the Door) took them a bit but once someone noticed the matching symbols they cracked it like nothing. Never set off the trap.

The Second puzzle (minesweeper room) was very interesting. It played out very much as if an entire group of people was playing a life-or-death game of minesweeper. The Undead Lord cleric and the summoner used their respective resources to tip-toe through the room. It was very interesting watching them attempt to guess the locations of the pit falls (and guessing wrongly on multiple occasions). No PCs took damage, but they did fall in four times after incorrectly guessing the wrong location for a trap.

All in all it was a great success and I hope to be able to present them with more puzzles in the future.

Just an aside, even if the Cleric is evil, he can still prepare and cast Cure Light Wound spells. They aren't good aligned spells so they still jive with evil deities. Bad guys gotta heal too :)

I always thought they would be unable to due to the text saying that you channel positive energy to cast it. While the other classes which can use the spell don't channel, the cleric must choose what kind of energy to channel (and as evil can't channel positive energy normally.) This choice also determines spontaneous casting of cure/inflict spells which seems to indicate that an evil cleric can't prepare a cure spell. He does in fact have a wand of cure light wounds purchased, so it is a moot point right now.

If you want to make him wary of charging you can use large creatures or creatures with bracing weapons. Throwing those in every now and again would be fun.

As for general trap tips, I consider hit point based traps a bit of a waste. The players trigger it and unless it kills them they just heal back up and move on.

My preference is for traps that are combined with encounters or traps that trigger encounters. Dropping the characters into a pit filled with jellyfish is a nasty trick (and will teach the players in your group to train SWIM!!) and the strength damage they take is likely to last a lot longer and make them a lot more cautious than getting smacked with a touch of hit point damage. Simple traps that knock people over or into pits can be super nasty in the middle of an encounter because it hurts the players when their hit points are scarce and delays them at a critical time.

I would normally agree that simple HP traps aren't much more than an annoyance but, alas, they are not a normal good party. I am actually running an evil campaign and neither cleric in the party channels positive energy or has access to cure spells. They may have a wand of cure light wounds but I'd have to check their sheets.

For future reference the party is made up of a Dwarf Cleric (Undead Lord Archetype), Human Cleric (Evangelist), Human Sorcerer (Infernal), Half-Elf Antipaladin, Human Summoner and Human Barbarian. They are all either level 6 or 7. The Dwarf also has two undead skeletons.

Well luckly there isn't anything extra to read since I designed them myself. The writing isn't hidden from them (and I'll describe it to them). Now I won't say that the symbols only match on those four spots but when they run into the puzzle they will have an idea where to go back and look. Perception checks and the characters will be able to solve it (or ill likely map out the symbols for them and have them still solve it).

The second room is the interesting one. I'm hoping it works as well as I think it will (or that they all just walk into the room and down they go lol).

The second puzzle/trap is also tied to the previous hallway. After getting past the puzzle door the group would enter a room 50ft long and 25ft wide. The five tiles directly outside the door (in the prior hallway) have numbers in Giant (0-4). When entering the room the tiles have these number magically etched into them which light up when stepped on and display a glowing number on the tile. There are 15 tiles (in a room of 50) which do not light up and are actually pit falls.

The pit falls are 20ft dealing 2d6 damage. They also contain stale air which has bubonic plague in it. Falling in triggers a fortitude save to resist contraction. Noticing the traps is a DC 35, but disabling them only requires putting enough weight on them to trigger it to fall. Reflex save of 15 to avoid falling in (although if you attempt to dive into another trapped square you get no save for that). It is currently a CR 5 based on this. Should it be higher?

I am designing a small dungeon for my group to adventure through. It begins with two "puzzles" which are also trapped before finally coming into some Two moderate encounters and one big one. I'm not as worried about the combat as I am about the puzzles.

The first one requires the group to rotate four stone rings into the proper order before the door will unlock with the provided key. Each ring has five symbols or words on it and these are what need to be matched up. They key to solving the puzzle is directly tied to the symbols written along the walls as your approach the door. For the final 50 feet the walls on either side have one of the symbols (for a total of each symbol repeated twice on each wall). The solution is hidden among the symbols on the wall.

Incorrectly solving the puzzle causes a trap to trigger when inserting the key. This trap is a set of spikes which exit the floor impaling the person standing in the square. The spikes deal 4d4 damage then reset into the floor, the door also automatically resets. I was going to make the check to see the holes in the floor a 15-20 (they are obvious if you look at the floor) but disabling the trap is close to impossible. I was going to set it at DC 30 or more because you can't rig the puzzle and picking the lock basically requires knowing the puzzle to hit the correct pins. Does this seem too difficult? I have it set to be a CR 4 based on the trap but think it should be higher due to the puzzle.

I have a second puzzle/trap that follows this which I'll post later.

If you are doing a 21-point buy I'd go with something along the lines of a 15-15-14-13-10-9 (Str-Dex-Cha-Con-Wis-Int) then taking a race to give you a bonus to Charisma or Strength (as 15 will give you the necessary dex for TWF). The Charisma bonus would give you better spellcasting, while the Strength bonus would give you higher damage. At 4th level I'd take the ability score point in Strength in any case to get you to the next modifier.

A heavy armor two weapon fighter is limited in feats because your armor limits the effectiveness of a high dex and AC. I'd also not discount Weapon Finesse right off... it may be out of the ordinary, but using a light weapon off-hand reduces your TWF penalties to -2, weapon finesse reduces the off-hand one to -1, while weapon focus reduces the other penalty to -1 as well. and by Level 3 take two mwk weapons and now you have eliminated the penalties altogether (bringing you back to your base attack bonus).

I have a world and campaign which is slowly going down those lines. The study of Magic has been banned in the main nation of the setting, but the practice is still allowed (although is very taboo and frowned upon in public). Sorcerers and the like exist (and I have retailored the Magus to be more like a Sorc than wizard) but they too are largely outcast and live in their own clans outside of the cities. It is very possible that magic is more accepted outside of the large centers of population or that people have a much more difficult time living without it.

If the setting bans magic practice, but not divine magic then the guards would likely have access to something approximating an anti-magic field (like an elite guard captain may be cleric-based or have access to anti-magic field scrolls etc.)

For the players they have to be well-informed going in as to what the setting is about. It provides a good hook along the lines of building a resistance or even down the evil line as the players could be a band of dangerous rebels, or the last of a dying group of evil magic users (maybe they belong to or support a group that once was the tyrannical magic government and formerly overthrown by the now magic-banning theocracy?)

It opens up a lot of new RP possibilities.

My suggestion is to put the skeleton in the ground, It's not like he's gonna die from suffocation.

In some of our games we have had to hide some pretty strange critters, animal companions, mounts and etc.

This is what he ended up doing, although thinking more about the setting I've made and how the populace might react it may be out of the ordinary to see a skeleton, but the worship of evil gods isn't out of the ordinary. The primary religions and main pantheon is based on balance and neutrality with gods balancing each other out.

So the citizenry would most certainly avoid them, but wouldn't run to the authorities (knowing that the worship of evil deities isn't just occurring, but occurs openly).

I also like the idea of dressing them up and bluffing their true appearance, although he didn't end up taking that route. Thanks for the input guys.

I am running my first evil campaign and have recently realized a possible issue that we may run into with one of my players. He is playing a Cleric with the Undead Lord archetype. His corpse companion is the issue I am now having as the players need to venture into the capital of the kingdom which is Neutral (both the vast majority of its citizens and its laws are based on the true neutral alignment), although there are good factions inside the city.

My problem is how should the citizens, and specifically the guards, view the skeleton? It is obviously an evil creature, but it is attached to a PC and essentially under his control. I lean towards saying that the citizenry and by some extension the guards would view this as some kind of abomination, but until it does something evil it would be allowed inside the city (much like my evil players).

Or should I approach this from the aspect that while the guards and citizens may not know the evil alignment of my players, they would surely know the evil alignment of the skeleton and be inclined to attack it?