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Been awhile since I have been on the forums, but after reading over this information I have a few thoughts, that I will have to test out once the playtest begins.

First to those talking about CLW I recall heavy use of such items as well, although my party generally ported over the belt of healing from 3.5 (750gp 3 charges per new dawn, 1 charge as an action heals 2d8hp, each additional charge used as part of the action healed an extra 1d8)
Each of our characters purchased one as early as we could to cover emergency healing (IE the cleric is down, party split, or out of combat conserving spells).

Now that I have gotten that out of the way my analysis of the currently presented data.

First a rose by any other name, they have different names for actions but as long as they state what they consume I really don't worry about what they name them.

Second: resonance: the base concept I really like, gives a value to charisma for all characters taking it away from being the defacto dump stat except for possible the artificer, but still making it not a huge investment by allowing level to go into it.

Third: resonance use: Investiture, for permanent items, a once per day toll to have access to the feature, allows to be handed over to someone else and let them have access, this sounds good to me. The 24 hour wait time has me concerned on one hand bad guy can't take my staff and use it against me, on the other hand I can't start using his staff after we beat him for 24hours. This may require some retooling.
I think overall making it so you need to spend RP on your items to keep them active each day is fine, but I think it is a good idea to setup with the GM an agreement of auto paying for some items (ring of protection type stuff)
As for a previous example someone did of the ring of water breathing I think this is a great thing, vs. item slots.

Consider this I can wear 8-10 rings now, rather than 2, I don't have to spend any points on the ring of water breathing until I am in a situation that calls for it. It sounds like investiture is a single action and most characters can hold breath for 1 round if needed.

My concern comes from the Staff and what it also might imply for wands.

If I recharge the wand each time I put investiture into it then I am still having to track charges which from the blog does not sound like the overall goal.

My recommendation is to make it friendly to resource management and non-casters
Staff of healing alt: spend 1 action and 1 resonance to cast healing lv 1 (this spell if I recall from earlier blogs allows you to spend additional actions to have a range, or area affect, I assume this works the same but does not eat additional resonance) you could then spend additional resonance as part of casting to increase the level of the spell.
The staff would also allow you to invest in it to give you spontaneous access to its spells of which you could spend your own spell slots on.
Invested characters still gain +1 to healing spells

This reduces the amount of tracking the player has to do, gives non-casters an option that works with said staff, but still makes it better for casters. While non-casters still have a benefit for investing if they choose to do so.

The consumable items have always been hit or miss with my party, and that includes potions, my players tend to shy away from one use items, which generally makes sense economically. Also we tend to play home games which has an effect on that too.

That being said items tuned to certain fighting styles and feats sounds neat to me, I think that the resonance system itself is a solution to the trinkets being consumed, I think a one use consumable should probably not consume any points. Better yet make it so you can spend the resonance to not consume the item.

This makes it so if you over spend and fail the check you have to give up the item to use its ability and then find or buy another later on.

Just some thoughts for now, really not sure what this says about how scrolls would work as well.

Nemo_the_Lost wrote:

I was excited by this idea yesterday, but, “move once, draw your sword, and attack,” and, “move away, draw a potion, and drink it,” seem like the definition of 'action' is going to be pretty pedantic. Three actions is still better than two, and I'm still watching with interest, but this post has made me more trepidatious, rather than less.

...Trepidatious is totally a word, Paizo forum spellchecker.

I believe the site just uses whatever your browser is set to. For me, armor shows up as incorrect despite it being the common spelling in much of Paizo's text. (Armour does not)

From re-reading what they said it would be both, all classes can setup a planned action such as stab the bard the moment he starts singing gilbert and sulivan (a ready action that happened to one of my bards back in the day)

Don't forget about the Inspired blade, comes with a free weapon focus, and easy build towards dex to damage at first level.

Rapier training will grant them an additional +1 damage making up for not being able to take arcane strike as well.

While +2 int is not optimal it will still give the player 5 panache points to start with, they may wish to invest in magic items that boost int and charisma, and it will be a little harder to build points back up. Only on crits
Still when you crit on a 15-20 that is a 30% chance of a crit per attack.

Also feel free to read through the swashbuckler and see what abilities you lose when not fighting one handed the main thing you lose is level to damage (and then this only is lost if you attack with your off hand weapon), so if you like you could go with two weapon fighting when moving around the field you still get bonus damage and when you can pull full round attacks you get more attacks, which help you crit more.
Allowing you to rebuild your panache, also you can still parry and riposte.

A while back I heard about an interesting idea from a friend.
Probably going to give it a try when my group gets back from their winter adventures.

you take the party and give one person a higher level character
for example lv 5
the rest of the party have one 3rd level character and 2 level 1 characters
this gives the low level characters greater action economy and versatility while the higher level player is out right more powerful. The idea is to create the feel of the main character while not actually taking away the usefulness of the other players.

from here you give out XP as if using the leadership feat so the lead receives xp and then the rest of the party receives xp that does not shoot them up levels but keeps them more in line with the advancement of the main character.

He used lv6 and made them take the leadership feat (this was for 3.5) placed the part members as two 1sts, and 1 3rd.

in pathfinder I would think to do this with 5th to start, just because 7th level you need for leadership starts the game at a very different tier of play.

apologies follow jerra's answer in the other post mine is based more on 3.5, and not on pathfinder did not realize the rules for that part had changed

in answer to your post yes it would still be considered a light weapon catagory wise what prevented people from doing this was the -4 penalty to using a weapon not built for your size.

so two weapon fighting would be -6/-6 without this trait and -4/-4 with this trait for using large sized short swords.

up side they count as light weapons and deal 1d8 down side you are sacking a trait, and still taking -4 penalty to attack, plus when you make an attack with one of the swords on its own say at the end of a charge or as part of vital strike or something it still has a -2 penalty.

so it is up to the individual player if this is worth it or not.

while not as high of a damage out put you could go with kukri's light martial weapon has a high crit range, but d4 damage output. would allow you to avoid dipping, works with two weapon fighting and does slashing damage.

So just found this post and really looking forward to reading through all the work you have done, one of my friends recently asked me to run a slayers esc campaign our thoughts were to make mid level characters probably 8 or 10th keep them at that level through out the game and then go monty haul with magic items allowing them to grow stronger through gear, may take some ideas up from E6.

Now that I have found your Insane fantasy system though I may have even more options than I had first anticipated thank you.

I feel the urge to put forth my two cents.

a player working hard enough to build a powerful character will in general succeed, as I have proven and my players have proven in a myriad of games, and over many editions.

To: Lemmy I will not say that there is some worry over handing out too much to dexterity based characters (this has existed long before paizo). The same would go for I feel allowing characters to build off of con for combat instead of STR or Dex.

Each stat has a role to play, and when we allow it to cover additional stats rolls we change the balance of the game, Dex is attached to a large list of skills, to AC, to reflex, and to ranged combat quite heavily.

Weapon finesse allows it to be attached to the attack rolls similarly to the ranged weapons. Shifting the characters needs a little away from str, costing a feat and generally keeping the balance for the most part.

To replace str as the damage stat though shifts a character completely away from needing str (outside of encumbrance and some skills that are not generally viewed as a big problem) especially with feats existing to allow one to do the equivalency of power attack with such weapons. I think it is called piranha strike it works with light weapons.

So in short it is a big change and thus has to be considered and weighed before one can say okay to such an option. In this case they have made it so it benefits weapons that don't necessarily work with weapon finesse already (except for certain exotic one handed slashing weapons looking at you duelist sword) it also has some feat taxing IE weapon finesse and a feat that most would consider an okay feat anyways weapon focus. To help balance out the benefit.

In the end it will help make the dex based character a more viable option and fencing grace will help other classes as well.

I feel the need to put in two cents,

so here I go.

Gnomes can be quite effective little buggers, I found that they make excellent mounted cavaliers and paladins, +2 con, and +2 cha is nice, and the ability to take ones mount into the dungeon is also a major benefit.

a Gnome Bard also can be quite the boon to the party although it is not always fun when you get stuffed into a box so the party can claim they have invented a radio. Still probably out most exciting infiltration plan to date.

Size can be an issue but they are strong for choices where size is not a big deal, IE casters. a gnome cleric has some extra hp and a boost to his charisma abilities, going with oracle or other charisma based casters makes it even better, a gnome sorcerer can do some good damage, and take a beating.

well I would build this piece by piece
so we have to have a master work weapon, you already said you don't want to use a long sword so we have 300+ chosen weapon.

+1 weapon costs 2k

next choose to mimic ring of protection, mage armor, or bracers of armor.
Protection for +4 costs 32k, 64k if considered to not hold a slot

circumstantial reductions: change 2000 multiplier to 1500 IE 3/4 price
24 or 48K

Mage armor:
opt 1: at will ability to cast mage armor as a standard action
opt 2: ability that activates a constant mage armor effect when unsheathed.

1: cost for a level 1 spell is 1800gp, down side must use a standard action to activate. 3600gp if not slotted

2: costs 2000gp, and does not use up an additional action to use. 4000gp if not slotted. this one is better so I will use this for future numbers.

mind you that mage armor does not stack with armor so that is the big difference between the deflection bonus and mage armor.

Bracers of armor: also does not stack with armor.
cost: 16k, 32 slotted.

now then lets work out the final costs for comparison (using longsword for simple math)

50gp+300gp+2000gp=2350gp this is what we know we must pay.

opt 1: increased by 50% for the additional ability rule: 36k or 72k
opt 2: increased by 50% and then reduced to 75% for circumstantial: 2250/4500.
opt 3: same as opt 2: 18k/36k

final costs
opt 1: 38350, 74350
opt 2: 4600, 6850
opt 3: 20350, 38350

so for your decision I would advise keeping in mind if you want this to stack with armor or not, and then what your gm will accept I would say you would be best offering up the opt 2 slot less option for believable
or the the slotted opt 3 most gms I think would accept.

good luck

Step 1 play what you wish to play, if you set your sites on a fire wielding oracle lets look at how to make that work best for you.

so starting off, we get to open with a CL 3 for fire spells, pyro, magical knack, and caster level. we are going to stick to that ruling unless your gm says otherwise as that is the only GM that matters in this scenario.

So right there we get to dish out 3d6 fire damage with shocking grasp.
alternatively if we go another earlier mentioned fire sorc, or dragon sorc of the right color, we get +1 damage on fire spells, in which case we can use burning hands to dish out 3d4+3 fire damage, statistically the same damage but as a 15ft cone instead of a melee touch attack. Down side reflex save instead of touch ac. although with your build reflex save may be better anyways. On top of this later fire spells granted by the oracle of flame get boosted damage as well, down side less fire spells since we aren't getting to change spells to fire damage for free.

also in late game fire ball and flame strike will be your good friends

When I first started GMing I was given some advice that I feel helped me a lot.

First: keep it in the game, if anything happens in the game it stays in the game, this applies to the players and the gm.
Second: your a good GM if everyone had fun (including you) your a great gm if everyone had fun and a story was told.
Third: Lord of the rings is how most people think the game is going to be played, slayers is how most of the games end up.
Fourth: it is not the GM vs. the players, nor the players vs. the GM.

I would also like to add that it always helps to know what the party wants out of a game, a lot of my games were run to help de-stress the group either from school based stress or work based stress. In these games we therefore used lots of comedy, and sometimes we just had to fight endless monsters till the barbarian finally felt better, after studying for 5 days straight for an exam.
And remember never be afraid to ask people what they are looking for in a game.

hope this helps

Okay got a few from what I built for a gestalt game a friend had been thinking of running, I was not allowed to dip back into 3.5

okay monk master of many styles fighter (end result snake, crane, panther style)

Swash buckler Magus: was really cool, got super scary when I went grave knight.

swash buckler paladin: pretty cool
swash buckler anti paladin grave knight (there was a possibility for going evil.)

Soul Knife/aegis possibly soulbow if going ranged. good by almost all gear dependency, and by almost I mean 90%

Aegis/Monk alt Aegis/brawling fighter, alt Aegis/Brawler

Swashbuckler/sorcerer considered dragon disciple.

Also something terrifying to do that I had shot down, was tried to convince him to let me use some feats from Iron hero's there are a couple of int and cha based feats that basically replace and boost attack and damage.

While I know this is a moot and silly point but I feel that a proper build with heavy emphasis on social skills can end most of these fights excluding the shoggoth and tarrasque.
Linnorms are generally Le which means we can deal, same with pitfiend, Balor much more on the chaos side might have to kill him, or better yet banish. remember with enough prep work nothing is impossible. Dust of dryness is the bane of shoggoth and other oozes makes it a quick kill. The Tarrasque takes a bit of work but I once built a brawling fighter lv 20 that could take him with his hands, just have to remember to buy a luck blade or a wish ring with at least one use available to end that fight.

So on the list of things needed, we need the ability to Banish a Balor, a big box of dust of dryness, some bribes, and a ring of freedom of movement because when fighting the Tarrasque you need to avoid being grappled and swallowed if you want to beat him to death, is what I learned.

Okay so I just reread this list, so first off
1: hurling magic weapons: each arrow is treated as a dagger for damage value, I advise buying large size arrows, they will need to be enchanted in batches can get expensive, but this attack is just making a normal range attack like with a bow, where you cannot mighty it, and you use int or cha for the attack roll, otherwise it is one and the same, with a limitation and how much can be thrown, so rapid shot would not work here.
But in answer to your question yes it would have a magic bonus to hit
2: yes see above
3: as long as you choose to fail the will save for objects on your person you can do so, just like with telekinesis.
4: it is a move action to pick something up and a free action to simply drop it
5: technically yes, remember we are treating this as throwing daggers at the enemy in which your CHA replaces dex for the attack roll, and you do not gain str to damage. in short you are making a normal ranged attack using cha or int. treat it as such for simplicity of the rules.

so recently built myself a 16th level pure swashbuckler for the end of the campaign, the party I was in were being a bunch of munchkins including myself and well we killed cthuhlu at level 16 enough said, so with the playtest out we decided to switch out for the final dungeon.

here is what I found, the swashbuckler works amazingly well with crane style especially fighting defensively invested eventually in a rod of balance is not a bad idea. you want to either go aldori dueling sword, rapier, or scimitar. the main reason for this is as follows

the aldori dueling sword has feats and traits that are very beneficial for attack, defense, and initiative. it also ends up with a 20% threat range,
and as soon as you can afford it put agile on the sword to add dex to damage.

scimitar allows you to get dex to damage earlier and less costly ends up with a 30% threat range, and is over all a decent weapon, but most of the time early game will be unusable and thus a starting character planning to take this root should use a rapier at low level and transition over.

rapier: like the scimitar it can get a 30% threat range, and we can enchant it just like the aldori dueling sword to provide dex based damage. but unlike the scimitar it does not take a feat tax

so in short if you want higher crit go rapier or scimitar depending on which is more important to your build feats or gold
and the aldori if you want a more balanced weapon for over all combat.

I ended up going with the transformative property for my weapon, think that is what it is called, either way cost an arm and a leg and turns my aldori sword into a rapier and back again. the reason for this is that even at that high level with the feats every 4 levels on top of normal I did not find room for extra panache feats and even with boosting my charisma and starting with rolled stats that gave me a good starting charisma I had 9 pts to work with and I burned through them fast, so I would switch to rapier to get them back, and aldori for while I had enough of them.

I would also say that it is best to make parry and riposte cost something, my advice is for parry to cost a AoO, and riposte to cost a panache, this means that you need combat reflexes to parry multiple attacks but can still use the ability once per turn without the feat tax, and if you wish to counter that attack it costs panache to do so, make this part of the parry ability, so as long as you have the 1 point you may spend an attack of opportunity to parry, and if you succeed you may spend a panache point to riposte.

In one of my first pathfinder games I ran I had a player come in with an archer cleric

it worked very well
for the most part just keep on hand some self buffs like divine favor

just a quick note you can still downgrade other actions for lesser ones, IE move for a swift
so round 1 swift action to kirin stance
move action sacked for swift action identify
standard action fireball (because why would I close into combat as a wizard)

make spell attack since it is a swift action spent after the attack already hit

scorching ray: hits 4d6 damage swift action to apply +14 damage
second ray: hits 4d6 damage (sacrifice move action) +14 damage

congrats you can get 2 buffs on these per turn as long as you don't move

not as bad as it looks

although yes feat taxes and level prerequisites can be costly
still I would consider this as a Magus, as well as I would say that this is something really nice for someone going duelist

well the issue with the goblins is that you need a negative CR and the only creature I have found that explicitly says it is the kobold technically the mite is equal cr to the kobold
here is what I would say, technically the goblin is 1 cr step above the kobold so technically the goblin is -1 cr so you might be able to apply the template to him to bring him up a bit and get the benefits

the area where I got the idea for the kobolds is that when building them as NPC/monster encounters to make them equal to CR1 the books say either treat them as -3 for NPC class levels so 3 NPC levels make them equal to base critters or -2 for class levels

while with most player races a signal npc level will make them cr 1/2 and a class level would make them cr 1

Advanced kobold starting as a third level wizard.
Str 9, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8
so -2 str, +2 dex, -2 wis, and -2 cha
then add advanced
so now it is +2str, +6 dex, +4 con, +4 int, +2 wis and +2 cha
with a free +2 to natural armor
and the other benefits of being a small sized kobold,

you get a -1 penalty to attacks in bright light but that is the only draw back and you get to be a third level wizard with great stats from out of the gate

Oh by the way what level is the game going to be if I know the level I can advise a lot better

If he is allowing you to use 3.5 nothing is scarier than the bard of leadership.

Step one spell inspirational boost, goal putting this on an item as a constant effect it is only level one so not that expensive
+1 bonus to all inspire abilities
step two lingering song from 3.5 1min after you stop singing it keeps going so 10 rounds per 1 round use technically
step three: song of the heart from 3.5 eberron: basically just like inspirational boost but as a feat.
step four: cohort feat from feats 101 a pathfinder compatible book.
grants you a cohort at 3 levels down from you but otherwise as if you had the leadership feat (level 5)
step five: leadership feat for a cohort 2 levels lower than you
step six draconic cohort: to get a dragon and since CR is now equal to Level it will be equal to you and eventually a level a head of you.
Step seven (optional) if the party is not evil but just op word of creation (good only) doubles the effects of all your songs, you are supposed to take subdual damage but based on the wording if you are trying to munchkin it you know longer need the perform checks for the bard abilities so there would be no sub dual damage.
Step 8: dragon fire inspiration, with lingering song and dragon fire inspiration you can greatly raise the damage abilities of your team.
unless things become immune to fire then you have normal bard bonuses still just no extra d6's of fire damage to all attacks (this should be in dragon magic or races of dragons can't remember which)

so now you can be a bard that is his own party, can buff like a tiny god, and is down right dangerous, finally for any build if you have room for it you could always go advanced template for stat boosts, or argue the negative levels of a kobold for the sake of free levels for building a character at which point you can be a wizard or sorcerer with +2 character levels, which is amazing as a caster, or throw in the giant and advanced template to balance and now you have a really physically and mentally effective body for your caster to use.

I built the bard for a villians campaign a while back, I was playing a group of gnome brothers and one half brother when it came to the draconic ally, Gnome Bard (Zeppo), Gnome Cavalier of the sword (Harpo) he successfully killed a bronze dragon in one hit with his small sized lance while riding on his war sheep. Gnome Alchemist (chico)and finally Gnome Half dragon red, Sorcerer (Groucho) lets just say I am band from doing this ever again due to the fact that I could take on the other 5 players in the party and in most cases I would win outright. (on the other hand I was actually good aligned trying to defeat a greater evil while using the villians as a tool for this goal)

okay so according to the monsters as pc section of the bestiary, start reading on the bottom of page 313, it states that we treat cr as level we do not increase level by taking additional hd so we only level with class levels, and that every 3 levels the rest of the party goes up from initial character build we count ourselves as 1 cr lower to a max of 1/2 rounded down of the total cr gained so for the half celestial +1 up until 6 hd where I go up to +2 adjustment

now then with a +1 the party grants that free level at 4th but of course that doesn't matter until I hit 6 hd.

your 8th level paladin would have 7 levels at this point, due to getting that free level now then 4 levels from now he is going to go up another cr so at this point the GM gets to make the all of either you not going up to 11th level and you stay at 10th when everyone levels up to 12th or you go up to 11th and count as 13th, and thus don't level up next level. I would advise the former for balance reasons.

but still the answer to the initial question is once more you are level 7 paladin and you are a half celestial

I have two things I end up doing based on how roleplay heavy the game is
if it is not role play heavy then the cost to craft is the only charge, mostly in these games I can get time hand waved as well so it just boosts the parties power.

2. is in a more roleplay heavy game I ask who are you to me, are family close friend business partner, etc. If any of these answers are more on the lines of friends and family then you get it at cost, if the answer is more business or not as close you get it at 75% of cost, you save 25% over all and I gain 25%

in a level 10 game one of my players picked up all the crafting he could with the starting gold the other players paid him for almost all of their gear, he followed option 2 so one player got things for cost, and the other two paid the price but in the end they saved and he profited everyone walked away thinking they had the better deal

, basic definition of a fair deal. at least according to my economics professor

I agree with Darkorin

also we have to keep in mind that it does not allow us to apply meta magic so while we can't buff those spells we can still throw them around

I ended up building a wizard archmage 20/10 while at work recently just for fun I spent probably an hour deciding which to go with it truly depends on play style and what your GM plans to throw at you

if I am going up against more mythic I am tempted to use wild because I can patch on meta magic and with the taking use meta magic spell for free
taking intensified (+1) empower (+2) maximize (+3) and Quicken (+4) I can basically apply these to my hearts content on my wild spells

I also picked up free casting of spells up to 3rd level

still it really depends on the build you make and whether you put greater value towards meta magic or breaking SR/multiple saves

I am all for Raving dorks idea of posting characters in this thread after work today I will finish writing up one of the villains I have designed for my Oriental Adventures game. I am using the world from L5R

just keep in mind a few things one the two handed proficiency part is not technically part of proficiency, it is a special ability of the weapon just like for the bastard sword. it allows you to treat a normally exotic weapon as a martial weapon.

just as if we take a Dwarf or an Elf or a Half-Orc they get similar effects with weapons named after them. dwarven war axe orcish urgosh, etc.
These weapons are still exotic and if we were not a dwarf the axe would still take exotic proficiency to wield one handed, but by being dwarven we may treat it as a martial weapon and thus it becomes easier to meet the prerequisite, although it does not change it so that the weapon can be wielded two handed with simple weapon proficiency. So in short special ability does not change the proficiency type there is only one type of proficiency.

thus they are all proficiency exotic so anyone with actual proficiency with the weapon would have exotic proficiency for them and not martial.

bestiary 3 just barely in time for Chanuka this shall be a great december

okay so to start off, remember that lowering the ac so that we can hit is supposed to balance out that we are doing less damage, your party seems really low on the damage scale and I would have to say unless they have a lot of attacks or really high crits I still see them having problems in a normal game.

now then, one thing I have used in previous attempts of armor is DR, was slashing goes against it as normal, piercing ignores half, and bludgeoning deals the prevented damage as subdual damage.

results: barbarian with a big hammer smashing heavily armored enemies unconscious, or later in the game after he took improved sunder, just smashing their armor, and going to town on the squishy insides.

The two weapon fighter, and archers ran into a little trouble but arrows doing piercing damage were able to get a little through and now that they could not miss it became an every round rapid shot and everything else they could throw in.

Two weapon fighter, had a little bigger of a problem since he chose slashing weapons, but he invested in high crit weapons and was able to dish out some damage, also he eventually started throwing on magic damage types to his weapons, and buffs from the party wizard or cleric can make a big difference especially when the size penalty to hit really doesn't matter.

Lastly don't forget guns at first increment hit touch ac which was without armor, thus in this case should be without DR. so they don't get more accurate they just punch past dr better.

this is why gongs are our friends, halfling bard will hide behind his gong thus cover and use his sling to attack from behind it, all while playing. downside moving the thing through the dungeon, and well I will never succeed a stealth check.

Second if we are talking about the fiddles I imagine (being a no talent violinist and I really do mean I have no talent) I just can't help but imagine adding a blade to my bow, thus while ducking and dodging and playing a tune I could then quickly snap my wrist out and strike someone getting back to playing before the vibration of my strings even stopped.

hope that idea helps, I was also a fan of the metal banjo (see planes scape survival guide webcomic for reference)

and the guitar with a battle axe attached pun tastic

+1 it makes sense to follow standard crafting rules in this scenario the extra cost is not just material it is the difficulty in crafting such materials so I would say it would be 8gold for that adamantium bullet.

+1
I can't see how this would be used negatively and it would remove the need for this to be changed further in the future, with any weapon that would react differently to rapid reload having that information in its wep description

I miss the mules (Half man half Dwarf from Dark sun) good times

sayer of nay, I think it would be an interesting fight, especially if we get a few delayed alchemist bombs in the hands of the summons.

boomerangs only come back if you miss. I have an Aussie Rabbi his demonstration was somewhat painful.

as for exotic being better I will state that it is not truly exotic as quick draw (a common rogue/knife fighter) feat can replace this, now then it does take some time and hand eye coordination to use a butterfly knife, on the other hand they are reasonably balanced so being able to throw them would make some sense to me.

Now then it has been somewhat standard to have gear progress up the charts with proficiency

IE: a short sword simple deals less damage than the martial equivalent the long sword which deals less damage than the exotic equivalent the bastard sword. (in the view of wielding them one handed) Same with axe progression, and I do believe spear progression but I would have to double check that one.

Now then if you don't want to spend the feat on it, then you can either not get the weapon and get your dagger, or you can talk with your GM about revamping the gear.

A few things, it really falls to the GM whether G-ds can be killed or not, for instance in games I run G-ds don't even really exists they are ideas created by high priests to create somewhat of a pyramid scheme of magic. (note I am a religious person, but this idea works really well for the world I have) With the complex plot going on that some miracles and divine servants exist and serve these powers which make the high priests wonder if these beings really exist and are actually manipulating them.

Now then I also am a big fan of deities being capable of being bested, or even killed in some scenarios. I agree with some of the people on this forum that mentioned making it an epic adventure. In a campaign I played in during high school, we started going after a cult that we did not know much about they were our consistent nemesis during the three year long campaign, of course during this campaign we slowly had revealed to us that the cultist served an incredibly powerful Chaos G-d, and when most of the party was around level 40 or so and we had specific gear, we went after him, we had killed his Avatar on several occasions, and bested the leaders of his cults, and assassins. We died screaming. Why not because we were not powerful enough but because we had not gone about finding the right things to battle a G-d with especially in their own domain. On the other hand we did kill the G-d of slaughter as the ultimate homage to said G-d.

My advice for running epic level campaigns is to have people start multi classing. I am running a epic villain campaign soon, and the plan for that campaign is that each party member needs to have some CR from a monster or template or multiclass, as I will not allow them to expand past level 20 in any specific class. or at least for the time being, before I work on designing my own epic rules.

while I doubt this will help I haven't posted in a while and felt like putting my opinion out there, thank you for listening to my ramblings.

yes you get touch attack, but within the 20ft maybe 40ft, and you are still making a ranged attack which draws attacks of op if you are too close. slow reload time hurts as well, two handed takes a round to load before you can fire, and the one handed still eats your standard action to load just like a heavy crossbow. throw in the range difference as well, and the fact you can buy mighty crossbows with a higher pull but not so with guns.

Cross bows no more obsolete than before.

guns just bring in close range weapons that take some work to make quick and efficient.

well bard has the fun of songs and buffing, with eventually haste, monk gets you some great bonuses and if you already have a high dex and wis rolled out then that is a great way to go, on the other hand barbarian gives you the hp to take a beating so ac is not as important and the wisdom keeps you from getting charmed.

crud I did not know that I need to keep up in my errata downloads. Also sounds like it was probably an in house argument on it, with the against side winning.
Me I will keep allowing players to use it because spring attack is a feat heavy build that very few of my players take, so I will reward the ones that do.

Oh mounted combat, while you can usually pull off some full attacks with that charging mount with lance and vital strike=brutal hit

well when it comes to werebears we run into some odd ground I would have to double check my books, but if they are still lawful bound barbarian is out, if not I would say barbarian is just fun with lycanthropy. Fighter is a fun build, or catch people off guard with something magical, or crazy bard half orc werebear for instance, monk is also an interesting romp.
Wow went all over the place with that answer
in short combat beat stick barbarian
caster probably sorcerer, maybe witch
oddity: bard

spring attack is a wonderful option, also I have been looking over soulknife twin strike, while not technically cannon, it is the closest we are getting to an official psionics for a very long time.

simple solution CR is +1 right, you guys are level one, so take a level of summoner as a half elf, build it out normally. Step two talk with your GM say hi I would like to be have this monster template, it is one CR when the party gains level 2 may I obtain this template crunch wise, until then my character will not reveal he is a werewolf to the party.

I had a player in my game who wanted to play a half dragon, so I made it so it would not reveal to the party till they hit 3rd level, I gave him some of the bonuses at 2nd level and the rest at 3rd. In a case with a +1 cr all you have to do is wait one level.

fun question, okay so first off yeah you can have it summoned in from somewhere as some form of mecha clank or what not, no big deal. Now when it comes to the armor the last call will be your GM's but it shouldn't be a big deal to let it keep the armor you have it wearing seeing as it doesn't easily change its entire form and if it un-summons it would be a reasonable conclusion that it could take things back with it. If they do not allow this, then carry around a thing of armor on a floating disc cart or what have you, and summon the ediolon right into the armors spot.

The only problem my game has run into is from the core rulebook...my players decided to buy siege weapons and just lay siege to lairs and such instead of battling monsters....then the trolls got siege weapons...it was amusing to say the least, with many "flying" kobolds.

sir I salute your treatment of the endangered species of Kobolds.

although yes issues can come up with siege weapons this is easily countered by pointing out to the party of difficulty of transporting them, and the fact that enchanting siege ammunition does not follow standard ammunition rules, a ballista bolt counts as a spear. :)

In general I would say some abilities have room for abuse such as the rage power for the barbarian mentioned earlier, but simple solutions are available to the craft GM, I believe someone mentioned goblin minions and what not, also should be checked what level the party is in order to decide what kind of mooks you would like to use.

okay so from reading all the thread and the book cover to cover twice so far.

I would say this for the most part you should probably just take one and go with it for situations where you like another ability or feel something different would be better for the feel of the character or the needs of the party I would advise talking to the GM.

Most GM's I know believe in playing for fun, so if you bring in something that will make the game more fun they will be happy to implement it, after making sure it won't kill the game.

I prefer to take a different stance, first off I would like to say that I enjoy this book. I have taken a stance that it is open to my players, but if they are going to munchkin or power game the situation they have to let me know what they feel will be providing this and what it allows them to do, allowing me to make rulings on effects before hand, and the ability that if I don't like that setup to ask them not to do that. Usually I get a very good reaction out of my players.

Many interesting ideas

I love having physical copies, this in part is why during highschool I messed up my back being the only person in my gaming group that could really afford 3.5 books, and the one willing to GM, I then had to use PDF files when I had to carry them using my laptop, during my time at university I have begun to carry around more physical copies again, I prescribe to Paizo because I want the PDF files as well, while I am mostly picking up the rules books (I have this unseemly habit of designing my own worlds and adventures) Still I run games when I can at my local stores, 4 of them within a 30-45min drive, due to proximity to Denver, and while on campus 2 stores one within walking distance. Almost all of my stores have taken to pathfinder which I am proud of, while still offering 4th edition, (I have nothing against 4e, I just was never all that fond of miniatures games) So I guess I am very lucky, but as a business major I have to agree giving them exclusives is not a great idea for the target market, now then having groups run games there is the best thing we can make available for many of these places, we can bring in a reasonable amount in snacks alone, not to mention dice, and who knows when you will need some tiles and what not depending on your play style, also with my players, some of them still don't buy their own books, but others see the books i have say oh that is cool goes over to the shelf buys another one, actually one of my old groups bought up a core book per player when they switched to pathfinder.

Either way I have been happy with the product but the only way to truly help your brick and mortar store and subscirbe or buy from Paizo, is to either buy some books from Paizo, and others from the stores (only about 10 bucks a core book pdf) or gaming at the stores bringing in business if you are running pathfinder and bringing in customers they will know who they owe this flux of consumers to.

hmm so it is in California, sigh why are all the CONs I want to go to out there, oh well I will have to keep with Mile Hi CON till I can afford the tickets to get out there, maybe 2012

Just felt like bringing in something for thought,

Iron Kingdoms not to be mistaken with Iron Heroes, was a system with a partial caster class called the gun mage, he had a gun it took a while to load and it was used to shoot people simple enough, he could spend an hour making fun bullets that could have spell energy put into them, this boosted his damage so cantrip adds 1d3, 1st d6, 2nd 2d6 and 3rd 3d6, he got bard progression and had d8 and 3.4 bab if I remember correctly.

anyways that is one way to go also those special bullets got boosts as he went up in level for magic enhancement.

it would be possibly something to use to instigate channeling spells through the weapon without having to cast the spells. Now of course we would have to revamp this around the idea that it would be melee and ranged weapons, but when I am building classes finding starting ground like this always helps.

Either way i am intrigued by this idea and I look forward to play testing it, running the numbers and crunching the numbers.