Lopsotronic's page

Get some armor spikes and you can threaten adjacent with the spikes while threatening the larger area with the polearm.

(By the way, I want to thank Treantmonk for his great guides)

Rangers have some skills, an animal companion and some spell. Indeed Treantmonk´s build is very interesting, being more than decent at close combat and incredible with ranged attacks. Of course, there is no perfect build, but it was pretty solid.

My "problem" is that a fighter with this feat can devote himself to ranged attacks and use them in close combat too. That would (IMHO) render the ranger a completely inferior choice in combat in every single way.

I respectfully disagree. A couple of times per day, the ranger will be out-damaging the fighter. Instant Enemy and Hunter's Howl make it mechanically very advantageous to stack all FE bonuses on one type, since you can apply that bonus to anything via spells. Gravity Bow is huge for devoted archers, since they spam so many attacks per round. The different with the fighter is that he can do it all day, every day, to anyone. Both are out-damaged by an Inquisitor archer, though, but his lethality is even more situational.

I made up a table of average defenses and primary attack bonuses . Data based on the 3.5 monster tables, detailed by CR.

Lopsotronic wrote:

Elven Rogue 1/Evoker (Admixture) 4/Assassin 1/Arcane Trickster 1
Sniper's Goggles, Rod of Quicken (Lesser)
CWI,Craft Rod, Quicken Spell

Doesn't qualify for craft rod at 7th level, and you're talking about how much money for a 7th level NPC?

Also for the other build, I think that the OP wanted it done in one shot.

-James

Whup, my bad. I also read the OP saying one round, not one shot.

One shot would indeed be hard.

I guess a super crossbow bolt (Unholy, Bane, Fire/Frost/Shock) would be only about 1446 GP. Ha ha, "only". Your rogue will want to True Strike that and Gravity Bow it. With Deadly Aim and a sneak attack, that should net you over fifty points of damage with one crossbow bolt. Bleed would still be good insurance, though.

Halfling Rogue 7, Sniper Archetype, maximum Dexterity
+4 Dex Belt, Murderer's Blackcloth
Quick Draw, TWF, PBS, Rapid Shot, WF:Dagger, Swift as Shadows
+11/+11/+11 within 10' with thrown daggers
1d3+1+4d6, 16.5, avg 49.5 damage if all attacks hit.
5 bleed per round, for insurance

Elven Rogue 1/Evoker (Admixture) 4/Assassin 1/Arcane Trickster 1
Sniper's Goggles, Rod of Quicken (Lesser)
CWI,Craft Rod, Quicken Spell
+8/+8 with Scorching Ray/Quickened Scorching Ray (vs touch AC)
4d6+2d6 sneak x2, avg 42 damage, +8 if within 30'

Evocation with Admixture and Dazing spell is not quite the trainwreck it was before. At the mid-higher levels, say, 12-18, the monster's will saves start scaling up quite sharply, while their reflex saves in general don't. A dazing fireball, admixtured to get past resistances, can achieve some pretty impressive results. Dazing magic missile is just fun.

I'm a fan of the Elven Rogue 1/Evoker(Admixture)4/Assassin 1/Arcane Trickster X.

You got Admixture to get past resistances, decent death attack DC (due to sky-high INT) with your quickened/still/silent Vampiric Touch (which will still net you a lot of temporary HP even if the target doesn't die), Scorching Ray x6 (with Quicken rod) for an awful lot of single target damage (Sniper Goggles aren't a bad investment here). Feats and items can get your Perception and Disable to rogue-like levels, and you're only 2 wizard levels behind a full caster.

Lopsotronic wrote:

Jesuit assassins had a special sacrament of penance for murders they hadn't done yet, because their mission would lead to almost certain torture and death.

And don't forget that the Jesuits knocked off Lincoln and that they've teamed up with the Jews to rule the world.

I didn't know the Jesuits had their own set of conspiracy theories! In a monogrammed set, no less.

I heard the pre-emptive absolution thing from a Jesuit when I was in high school. Supposedly the Pope gave out quite a few to operatives in Calvin's Geneva (which was not a nice place at all, incidentally). It led me to thinking, huh, priests are way cool. I think the young priest telling me this had his heart in the right place, but, in hindsight, perhaps he was taking the wrong tack in getting young men excited about the order.

Later, when studying the Crusades and such, I found out that preemptive absolution was no big thing for Catholics by the time of the Counter-Reformation. Shouldn't have been any surprise. It makes sense for any good Catholic who is very likely to die immediately after killing a number of people.

doc the grey wrote:

original post

hoping I didn't arrive too late for posting on topic...

Rather than dividing by saints, it seems (to me) more obvious to use the monastic orders. Disclaimer: i got no depth knowledge of catholisism, but at least i can illustrate the idea. Each order is governed separately and dresses distinctively:

* Jesuits: LN - longsword - law, knowledge, nobility.

* Fransiscans (Grayfriars, Cappuchinos): NG - quarterstaff - community, good, animal, travel(?), liberation(?).

* Templars: LG (paladins) - sword - protection, war, glory.

* Hospitaliers: NG/LG (paladins) - mace/morningstar - healing, protection, repose(?).

* Dominicans (Blackfriars) : NN (?) - staff - knowledge, magic(?), rune(?).

I'd take a lot of liberties with these charicatures. I'd make some new domains, such as "purity" (covering both purity of spirit and inquisitions)

Just make sure players understand and agree: This isn't porting RL church into PF, it is about designing a fantasy(!) religious system based on historical conceptions and misconceptions.

Jesuits aren't medieval, unfortunately. It's too bad; they've got great flavor. Historically they could be some scary dudes. Jesuit assassins had a special sacrament of penance for murders they hadn't done yet, because their mission would lead to almost certain torture and death. No point murdering all those people if you don't get your heavenly chaise lounger afterward.

Lopsotronic wrote:

In a fantasy setting, characters would pray to their saints for power not because they are worshiping multiple deities but because by praying to a saint they are reaching out to a particular aspect of the divine, an aspect that they have a very personal and day-to-day relationship with. It's something very much like middle-management, but without a Pointy Haired God.

I've already outlined that fact.

That still has nothing to do with the fact going "Saints can create a Pantheon because Christianity subsumed pagan religions!" is patently false. That reasoning is not Catholicism; it's a piecemeal pantheon of those subsumed deities. Catholicism lends itself more than any other facet of Christianity to representing a faux pantheon under different major saints, but that doesn't make it a fantasy polytheistic religion. Trying to make it so is already a stretch.

And let's not even get into the fact that the entire pantheon would be "LG" or "NG."

Quote:

So long that, of these aspects, Christ is foremost and closest to God.

Also, not Catholicism. In Catholicism, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is one being.

Well, it's not going to be real Catholicism. Monsignor Higgins down at St. Lawrence can't heal wounds with a touch, and I'm pretty sure if the Pope could raise the dead we'd know about it. It would have to be an alternate reality world, and the divergence would become increasingly apparent as you approached the modern era. Perhaps you could have a mechanic where having enough books in one place creates an anti-magic field against both arcane and divine casters. An information singularity that disables magic of all kinds. The invention of the printing press would be the fricking apocalypse.

1) Get more actions: quickened spells, summoned monsters
2) Protect yourself from ranged attacks via cover, entropic field, displacement, wall of wind, etc. PFRPG Manyshot is murderous and they can get it at ECL6.
3) Get a miss chance via displacement or similar.
4) Get DR

In scenario design I'd also focus the center of attention away from the BBEG by invoking the "Incredibly Destructive Combat MacGuffin" or IDCM. A classic example is the role played by Syndrome's wrist controller at the end of "The Incredibles". A fantasy version might be some Gate that, under the control of the BBEG's IDCM, keeps spitting out fiendish ankylosaurs. Good Guys have to get ahold of the IDCM to even make the fight winnable, and the BBEG is not going to let that happen if he can help it. "Ha ha! Yes! Exhaust yourselves against my BONY ARMADA!"
Bonus points for making the IDCM really, really hard to use.

Brigid can be possibly based on a Irish deity of the same name. But so what?

So you do admit that there is such a thing as syncretism in Catholicism?

Then you are entirely missing the point of "lol, I want to do Catholicism as a religion!" It's a monotheistic religion. Your going "lol, look it subsumed pagan beliefs! It can totally be made a polytheistic fantasy religion!" falls on its face because the moment you do that, you are just creating a piecemeal pantheon of pagan deities, not Catholicism.

It's not piecemeal; it's a living, breathing religion, and as such, it absorbs the best, brightest, and -sometimes unfortunately- most convenient concepts that it needs to. All aspects that it absorbs are reconciled to be aspects or emanations of a divine mover in the cosmos. So long that, of these aspects, Christ is foremost and closest to God.

In a fantasy setting, characters would pray to their saints for power not because they are worshiping multiple deities but because by praying to a saint they are reaching out to a particular aspect of the divine, an aspect that they have a very personal and day-to-day relationship with. It's something very much like middle-management, but without a Pointy Haired God.

Characters choosing not to associate with a particular saint but still wishing for domain powers (as appropriate in the rules) could doubtless arrange something with the gamemaster.

Again, the whole setting should be run by the group before being implemented. Countries have lost most of their fighting age men over this; don't let it happen your Friday Night Buddies, everyone.

Incidentally, it's "you're going", as in, "you are going", and not "your going", which would be "something belonging to you going".

Lopsotronic wrote:

The pantheon of saints was created over time to replace the various religions converted, by book or by the sword. So they're very convertible. Take St. Michael Archangel, your basic war deity. They didn't even make the saint out of a real person. They basically said, oh, this angel guy's the real Thor, and by the way, that little hammer you guys wear, put a little peak on the top there, Thor - I mean St. Michael- likes that. Gives you something to poke the other guy with, too, when he rushes you in the middle of your swing.

I don't think that's remotely correct...

What, specifically, is not correct about it? The conversion of various gods into the cults of saints was one of the most critical aspects of the Christening of Europe. The missionaries even mention it in the primary sources, letters to the legates, about how such and such a pagan community would be easily converted to a ministry of saint so-and-so, due to the similarity between the community's pagan portfolio and that of the saint. It's not at odds with monotheism, at least from the Catholic perspective. I suppose a great many wars have been fought over that.

So, yeah, check with your group first.

You might want to divide the domains and favored weapons up among various saints.

Seconding, thirding, and fourthing this.

The pantheon of saints was created over time to replace the various religions converted, by book or by the sword. So they're very convertible. Take St. Michael Archangel, your basic war deity. They didn't even make the saint out of a real person. They basically said, oh, this angel guy's the real Thor, and by the way, that little hammer you guys wear, put a little peak on the top there, Thor - I mean St. Michael- likes that. Gives you something to poke the other guy with, too, when he rushes you in the middle of your swing.

This also sidesteps the whole "is the Catholic Church Evil" thing. The various sects are as good and as evil as they can be. Dominicans make fantastic LE masterminds; many of their leaders can be devils and tieflings, for added flavor. Franciscans make for classic good-aligned types, with druids and rangers bolstering their ranks. Templars can be the doomed LG paladins and clerics, who get hoodwinked by a corrupt Papacy and the scheming amoral French crown, possibly with the infernal help of a few Dominican Erinyes.

It's a terrible thing to do, but if your GM allows Sword of the Arcane Order from 3.5 (FRCS) you can turn your ranger spells into wizard spells and get into AA early. The problem with that is the APG ranger spell list is unspeakably cool, so you might be gimping yourself from straight ranger. It's hilarious saying that since SotAO was one of the keystones of dirty 3.5 archer builds.

I'd hesitate using 3.5 rulings in PFRPG as the other classes have gotten such a substantial boost. 3.5 power limits might bring the AT way below subpar in PFRPG.
Even if you allow each ray to do sneak attack damage, an 11th level trickster (Rog1/Wiz4/Ass1/AT5) is going to need a Rod of Quicken and Sniper Goggles to even come near the single-target DPR of a Paladin Archer (Smite), an Inquisitor, a Zen Archer Monk, an Archer (Ranger or Fighter) or, hell, even a vanilla THW fighter. Burning a Rod of Quicken brings the Trickster within spitting distance of the Archerdin with his smite up, but the Inquisitor is only a few buffs away from overtaking both. In my real-world experience (i.e., actual gaming), the Inquisitor is the most obnoxious boss killer, but that's only because the Paladin is always too busy saving peoples' asses (removing status effects and tanking).
If you don't give the AT single-target damage, I hope the adventure has a lot of traps, because outside of traps and single target damage the AT is a waste of space. I suppose they are also pretty good at getting out of jail, which I remembered doing an awful lot of with my AT. I also remember being unconscious an awful lot and wiggling feebly whenever grappled.

Rogue1/Evoker4 (Admixture) /Assassin1 nets you a Death Attack (DC17), Scorching Ray x2 for 6d6 each, which can be made into any energy type with admixture, and a giant bucket of skill points. Craft Wondrous Item effectively doubles your money for most of the purchases. Obviously this would work better with an elf, but hey.
Ready for entry into Arcane Trickster, as well.

One of my favorite fighter builds is a Wood Elf specializing in archery with a strong minor in Curveblade. The bad guys will take a lot of damage getting to him and then they will be sorry they did.

In a magic-poor world, I'd recommend making it possible for armor and weapon qualities to be swapped around. For example, a +1 Flaming Holy Longbow could have a handguard that gives it the flaming quality, a stem that makes it a +1, an angel hair string that makes it holy. A suitable Craft check could separate it into components and re-assemble it as a +1 Holy Longbow, and give the Flaming enhancer to someone with a +1 weapon. This way you don't need to give out quite so many big items, because the martial classes can re-configure themselves as needed. It's also a lot of fun.
I also advocate giving out in-game awards in the form of tokens, most often the "Standard Action", or "Move Action". This allows you to balance the group as you play, and it also allows you to reward players that do something particularly cool.

Take a look at the Halfling alternate racial traits. Low Blow, Underfoot, and Craven are all good choices for melee.

If you want to get silly, try a Barbarian/Alchemist/Fighter (Two-Handed Fighter). Gulp down a mutagen, rage, Grab a Belt of Giant Strength +2 as soon as you can and you can be the halfling with 26 STR. MINIATURE HULK SMASH!

You could go TWF as well as taking the Archery archetype. +14/+9/+14/+9/+14 would be possible as early as 6th level. Your big problem will be damage output. Using the Archery archetype, I'd stick with ranged maneuvers until you can stack some static modifiers on that. It would still be a scary ranged maneuver build.

It's suboptimal compared to an archery Inquisitor, but still totally feasible. Solo Tactics when combined with the right Teamwork Feats can work magic in melee. A high crit range by L14 is nice. Choice of domain will also be more important than it would be with the archer variant: aura of destruction will be a dramatic boost versus big single targets; the repose touch attack is particularly handy with a party monk (Medusa's Wrath).

The problem with Wind Wall is that you're getting to the point of reactive DMing, where you are designing encounters specifically to nerf the people playing. Also, if the Archer catches on, they're just gonna machine-gun casters (since archers also usually have really nice initiative mods) so that Wind Wall won't get a chance.

Then all of the sudden as a DM you'll be starting to make encounters where casters start behind walls or something, then just cast Wind Wall from out of a closet somewhere....and pretty soon you're just specifically targeting a player who has built a solid character. Do all casters in the world know that the PC with the bow is a damage-hose and that their first move should always be one of their low level spells?

Bah humbug to that!

If I nerf your character by neutralizing a single attack option, that is not my fault as a GM. The paladin can do other stuff. A fighter has more than enough feats to specialize in archery and THW. Overspecializing is not my problem. Dying in one round, however, is.

I would contend that it's not a reactive thing for a bad guy to do; it's realistic. Put yourself in the shoes of a BBG in the PFRPG world. Would you go out into the open without the ability (or without a lackey that has the ability) to shield you from these lethal missile weapons? Wind wall is just one of the more effective options. Displacement would be nice too.

As for pulling spells out of a closet, that's what rods of quicken are for.

As for hiding behind walls, losing initiative . . that comes down to perception versus perception, and luckily, the archery-types don't have super perception scores. Wisdom's a tertiary stat at best. So you can be ready for a party that isn't being super-tactical with their scout types. If they are . . hey, game on!

We also have a Fighter Archer in our group. More often then not his is the highest damage dealer round after round. Though he is one of our couple of min/max players but even without that I think he would still be high. Throughout the campaign so far he has consistently thrown out as much damage as the Sorcerer can with his highest spells (unless a good AOE opportunity comes into play but there is always exceptions). The thing that has our Sorcerer frustrated is that he is limited to how many rounds he can throw out that much damage where the Archer does it every round. And from what I see the APG made them even better. They are a very high damage dealing class. A lot can be said for not having to really worry about position (other then for range). While all the melee are running around the archer continues to stay immobile to use full round attacks to his advantage.

In one of our one off modules we did because not everyone could make it one week. All 4 PCs showed up as archers (not planned). Too bad most of the adventure was inside and close quarters but they still dropped stuff pretty effortlessly unless they ran into something that had the ability to take measures against ranged.

A paladin archer can mess things up at 12th level. Divine Bond: Celestial Spirit goes to Speed enhancement on a +1 Holy Merciful bow. For the hell of it let's say s/he's got Divine Favor and Weapon of Awe up. Manyshot, rapidshot, deadly aim. You're talking 6 arrows in the air at +24(MS)/+24/+24/+19/+17 for an average of 41 each. Oh yeah, and they all punch through DR. So long BBG.

Whenever I'm running PFRPG I make sure at least one person in the BBG's camp can throw up a Wind Wall. I learned this the hard way at the hands of an Inquisitor archer. Greater Bane can eat my &%*#!