Lord Pendragon's page

Thanks for all the thoughts so far!

The language is dead-dead, several languages removed from anything spoken currently, so it isn't possible to see pieces of it in modern speech/writing.

I have a couple of reasons for wanting to include the language. It will serve as a means to provide the players with information about the nature of their world. It may grant access to certain otherwise inaccessible magical items (such as ancient scrolls, etc.) It will also possibly serve to feed them plot information.

I also like the idea that earlier bits of the language they encounter and cannot understand at all at first could later be revealed to be interesting and/or important.

I have been playing with the idea of "other things in their downtime" sort of. In other words, just giving one player the extra skill and giving other players other unique perks. There are seven players total though, so it will depend on if I manage to come up with six more interesting perks. :p

I hadn't considered memory crystals. That could be a great way of introducing the ability to speak it, which couldn't otherwise happen without a lot of exposure otherwise.

So I want to have an "ancient language" in my upcoming game that players can gradually learn. It's a dead language, so I am not going to allow them to choose it as a bonus language or drop a single skill point into it and gain total mastery of it.

Also, since nobody alive understands it, it will not be translatable through standard magical means. (My reasoning being that such spells "borrow" understanding of a given language from someone else, and since nobody else knows it, nobody to borrow from. This allows said spells to still function for all the other languages in the campaign world, just not this one.)

Originally, I'd thought that I would make it a skill. A player would get a single skill point in "Ancient Language" whenever they came across a new sample of the language, rather than by spending skill points. So eventually they would become proficient.

My problem with this solution is that I mean it to represent studying the language, but nothing would prevent *every PC* from claiming to be studying it, just so they could also roll. Our group tends to metagame skill rolls outrageously. i.e. when one person gets the idea to roll to spot something, suddenly everyone wants to roll perception for no reason whatsoever, etc.

So I need some way for a player to choose to focus on this language for my idea to work, or come up with some other way to handle the ancient language altogether.

Thoughts?

The party wasn't helping me because they are idiots...

Not everyone in our out of character, is a tactical genius. If the other players are open to suggestion, you might try offering friendly suggestions for tactically sound options in combat. In the end the decisions must be their own, but there's nothing wrong with some friendly advice.

You should consider the fact that the cleric did in fact try to help your character. That he failed to make it over the pit was bad luck. It happens. People fail jump checks.

Also consider that, at that moment, helping the cleric out of the pit (which is what you say one rogue was trying to do,) is a tactically sound decision. The cleric would appear to be your group's only healer. Not only that, but clerics are sound offensive assets. Getting the cleric back into the game is not a bad idea at all. He may have gone about it incompetently, but the tactical decision was not a bad one.

So at most there are only a couple of your party members that may not have been as quick to jump to battle as one might like.

Has your character tried talking to his companions and telling them his concerns?

I am thinking about not defending the party members who didn't help me, and just protecting the ones who tried to help me in the battle. I'll allow them to be in command of their own destinies, and help them if all is lost for them as maybe then they'll give a damn.

Even so, I would consider going into combat with individuals while letting them believe you are an ally, and then letting them die, to be Evil. You're essentially trying to get them killed.

If your character truly believes them to be incompetent to the point that they are endangering his life, the decent thing to do is for him to part ways with them and find other traveling companions. Not keep the ones he has until he can get them murdered.

The Grease spell has already been mentioned.

I'll add that it makes a fine potion or oil.

Wouldn't an oil of Grease just be, well....grease? :p

Like Captain K mentioned, I believe it all comes down to build, and with the cleric there are several viable alternate builds just with the base cleric.

A cleric that is focused on spellcasting is likely to stay at range, so they aren't going to see a lot of value in HAP.

A cleric focused on archery is also likely to stay at range, and therefore is just as unlikely to see much benefit from HAP.

A melee-oriented cleric, however, will see substantial benefit from HAP. Naturally, they will have to give up something else to get this benefit, but that's how feats work. You choose one benefit over another. And for the melee cleric, HAP is a fair option.

In my current group, we have two combat clerics, which my magus refers to as the Twin Towers. They both wield heavy shields and one of them has HAP and an AC of 26 at 4th-level (I think the other is also planning to eventually pick it up, but am not sure she has at this point.) As we have no paladin or fighter, they're usually our front line and a high AC is a definite plus.

If your GM works with you to provide a bit of foundation in the game world, you could accomplish this by being from a society that does not have the same sort of property rights that most modern societies do. It might place more value on things taken from others, and devalue those who cannot hold on to their own belongings.

The Ironborn in Game of Thrones are somewhat like this. "The Iron Price" is all about the honorable art of taking other people's stuff through violence.

Other cultures might simply value the craft of thievery without the violence. In this case it'd be more admirable to steal something rather than merely buy it.

I disagree. A magus has far more options than a wizard, and has to worry about many more mechanics. Most decent players for instance can avoid having to cast defensively, worry about positional attacks of opportunity, etc. Not saying these things don't come into play with a wizard on occasion, but they are a part of nearly every magus combat.

On top of that the magus has to deal with spell recall, penalties to attack when using Spell Combat, which grants a bonus attack on touch spells. Plus they have to choose spells just like a wizard. They also suffer from more MAD than a wizard does.

A wizard has more spells, true. But spells is pretty much all they do. Once they get the hang of that, they're golden. The magus does two-weapon fighting melee and spells. It's like having to learn fighter and wizard at the same time. Plus unique mechanics for the magus on top of that.

Lancelot was never a Paladin. He was a jerk his entire life. Well before his betrayal of Arthur, he would disguise himself as a weaker member of the Round Table and ride around to get into fights. No one would fight him, because they were all afraid of him. Very few if any of the Knight of the Round Table were Paladins, for the most part they were self centered jerks.

If we're looking at the source material I have to agree. The only Arthurian knight that one could argue is a paladin is Sir Galahad, Lancelot's bastard son.

This thread seems relevant. It turns out acid resistance is more common than electricity resistance, but electricity immunity is more common than acid immunity.

Which makes the lower acid damage make sense. After all, at the levels where resistances/immunities start to show up, -5/10 damage isn't a big deal, but complete nullification is.

Still not sure how Cold gets a pass though...

One think that I dont get is the whole Strength=To hit bonus. How is a lumbering behemoth with plenty of strength more likely "to hit" someone. He'll do a hell of a lot more damage, but he shouldnt have much more accuracy (my little rant on the whole strength vs dex thing)

Actually, in the real world, swordfighting (and I presume melee combat in general, but I only have actual experience with swordfighting) accuracy is a mixture of strength and dexterity. Indeed, I don't now how you could even separate the two in a real-world scenario, since dexterity with a weapon is a function of strength.

These complexities are left out of D&D/Pathfinder because it would merely add another level of needless complication. But if you're talking about what "should" be the case, then the weak but nimble guy might be great at throwing playing cards, but his accuracy with a shinnai will be terrible.

I'm pretty confident that Paladins can "use detect evil, as the spell" at will, AND furthermore quickly evaluate a single target with a move action.

Your confidence is misplaced.

Detect Evil.

*looking right at a devil*

Round 1: I sense Evil in the vacinity!

Round 2: There is one Evil creature nearby, and it is strongly Evil indeed!

Round 3: There! *points at the devil* There is the Evil creature!

(The rest of the party groan and roll their eyes.)

Luckily the paladin ability isn't exactly like the spell. :p

I think I can see why it would be a trip weapon. You would use a combat scythe differently than a typical polearm because you would still use the handles attached to the shaft for a better grip. That changes how you swing it.

This is what has me confused about the pictures linked earlier. I've held a real scythe as part of a theatre production, and the thing's shaft is not straight. It's twisted to provide the proper positioning for the two handles attached to it.

So I'd have to think converting a farming scythe to a war scythe would not only involve re-attaching the blade at a different angle, but also replacing the shaft altogether, if those sketches are in any wise accurate.

Take a look at Demon and Devil subtypes to start. Notice the immunities to Electricity and Fire.

There's a good reason for acid to do less damage than fire or electricity. Not so sure why Cold doesn't seem to get a similar penalty though...

If teleportation is going to be your thing, you might consider picking up Dimensional Agility.

Being able to Dimension Door with your entire melee crew, dump them next to the BBEG behind enemy lines, then Quickened Dimension Door back to a nearby hillside = Priceless.

Everyone's pretty much covered it. It's a player issue, talk with the DM (and all the other players) about it. Evil can work, but only if those playing are interested in making sure it's fun for everyone. Some folks get a kick out of trying to "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast" the other players, but that only works if all the players like the idea and are informed from the very beginning.

Nobody wants to roleplay someone else's rube, which is what this player seems to expect the other players to do.

If I were the GM, I'd require the player in question to accept the fact that I refuse to run a game that isn't fun for everyone, and he/she needs to create/roleplay their character acordingly. I'd also warn them that should they decide later on to try and screw the players anyway, Fate would be on the other players' side, and all the (evil) player's PC's rolls would mysteriously miss, and all the other PCs' rolls would be auto-crits.

The Gods in my worlds hate a douchebag. Even the evil ones. :p

I definitely feel like Crane Wing is very, very strong. Not only does it block one attack each round, but it's always the most advantageous attack to block, since you get to choose when to use it. If you're fighting a single foe, his first attack will always be his strongest when full attacking, or his only attack when not full attacking.

Really, the only counter to this feat is to never use single opponents, but always gangs of equally dangerous foes. Even then, the monk would have to be facing at least a couple of members of said gang for Crane Wing not to block the strongest attack against him, and even then it isn't as if the feat were nullified, merely that he'd still take one strong attack instead of two.

And Crane Style is a good defensive feat itself, reducing the penalty for fighting defensively by half and increasing the benefit by 1/3rd. So it's not like there's a feat tax to get it.

Is it overpowered? Harder to say. Mirror Image has a solid though not 100% chance to accomplish the same thing, though it does cost a resource. Displacement grants a 50% chance to avoid any attack, not just one.

All in all I'd say that like an archer's full attack, Crane Wing is something that requires a DM to be aware of it and take steps to ensure it isn't overpowered. So long as the campaign contains plenty of multi-foe encounters, magical attacks, etc. then Crane Wing is very strong but not over-the-top. If the DM runs almost entirely one-foe physical encounters, then yes, Crane Wing is completely OP.

Okay I just couldn't stop thinking about this. You claim to not want cheese, yet you pick a fairly borderline cheese class

Plenty on this forum--myself included--would consider this comment erroneous. There's nothing cheesy about the magus, presuming you avoid the arcane mark silliness, which I did. It made for a painful levels 1-3, but I am not playing Zorro, so it simply did not feel legit for me. I'm picking up the Close Range arcana at level 5 to allow me to use Ray of Frost, which is an acceptably non-cheesy spell for me to use when I need a way to pull off a resource-less spellstrike.

build a custom weapon that is presumably better than what is readily available

It's basically a reskinned scimitar. Same stats, different look. I suppose the fact that I don't have to spend a move action drawing a ranged weapon if I want to shoot at someone is an advantage over a normal scimitar, though an infinitesimal one. I treat the gunblade as a double weapon, so no sharing of enchantments or whatnot. The blade and gun are enchanted separately which means if I do use the gun, I either have to expend a swift action and pool point to enhance it, or I'm firing with merely a masterwork weapon. And if I do enhance it with the arcane pool then swap back to the blade, I have to re-buff that or I'm using just a +1 scimitar equivalent.

So no, not really better than whats out there. Consider also that it cost me nearly 4000g to make, and I couldn't gather the materials until level 3 (was using a rapier until I could build it) and your argument looks more and more like an ignorant excuse to bash someone's playstyle that you know nothing about.

We won't even get into the Knowledge (Engineering) that I've maxed out as an accompanying part of the character's concept. I know that's high on every optimizer's cheese list.

you get hyper defensive when probed about it and stop responding?

I stopped responding due to his attitude, which made snide remarks and assumptions about my playstyle. I'm responding to you because while you're making the same unfounded assumptions you've thus-far avoided being rude, mostly. Though claiming I'm seeking out cheese with no foundation for such accusations is still annoying. :p

If you aren't looking for cheese I'm not sure what you are looking for.

I was looking for what folks might consider a fair cost for enchanting a ranged weapon to allow for a ranged spellstrike, for a character that doesn't have the class features, etc. to back it up. I gave some character background to explain that it's not something that will come up often, but something that I wanted for mostly RP reasons, but figured should still have a reasonable cost. Even RP stuff is rarely free. Instead I found many DMs were uncomfortable with the idea. A few posters suggested possible alternatives to get me what I wanted in a different way, which I appreciate. Others decided instead to attack my integrity as a player, which I do not.

This is not a knock. Remember, cheese can be fun too! I love myself some cheese. Especially if everyone is on board the cheese-submarine.

Fair enough. For me, cheese is an insult, which may explain why I was so quick to defend myself. I don't like it, and actively avoid it. In 3.5 my fighters never wielded mercurial greatswords, and as I said above, my magus has never arcane marked his initials on a foe to get an extra attack.

You know what would be cool? Spell combat with cone spells. Or spell combat with Web if you can get the ranges to work out right. Imagine a gun that can shoot a cone of glue. Kind of like the old wand of viscid globs before they nerfed it in 3e.

THis is definitely where my thinking has been headed after this thread. Re-imagining the way spells look to incorporate the gun, while not really changing any of the mechanics. This gets me what I wanted, a useful ranged attack that incorporates my gun, without asking the DM to do anything out of the ordinary at all.

Incidentally, my DM does work with me to give me most of what I want, but I refuse to abuse that trust. It's one of the reasons I started this thread, because I didn't want to just go to my DM and say "I'd like to give my gun the ability to ranged spellstrike, this is what it should cost" without checking my thoughts on cost and making sure I wasn't lowballing it unintentionally.

On that note, how about using alchemical stuff? Thunderstones, tanglefoot bags and such on your ammo? Is the gun more of a solid slug thrower or a blunderbuss?

The gun is pistol-like, though of course it's built to support magical projectiles and modular so I can upgrade it later as neat ideas occur to me. A web bullet may be something to look into though. If I'm in a situation where I can only use ranged attacks--and that's what we're talking about, since if I can melee I'll be doing that--then there are no bad options.

The design team released a statement specifically addressing this issue a few days ago. It is completely within to rules to benefit from the extra attack while granted by haste while using spell combat.

It's funny, I read that thread about five minutes after I'd posted my reply in this one. Guess I can't use that example anymore, since haste is now legal. :)

However, if you had a +1 weapon with a lot of other abilities you could stick a +4 tassel on it and ultimately save money on a +10 equivalent weapon, or even have it like a +14 weapon (+1 weapon enhancement, +9 in abilities, +4 enhancement from tassels).

A single weapon cannot have a modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus special ability bonus equivalents, including those from character abilities and spells) higher than +10.

But I'm thinking an alternate way: why don't you develop a magus spell instead? A spell that allow the same thing, something like true strike, but instead of a tuo hit bonus, it give you the ranged spellstrike. What do you think?

You know the more I think about spells in general, the more I am thinking I may not need spellstrike at all. I can always just keep a Scorching Ray on tap and reskin it to be a gun attack.

What I was/am most after, at the end of the day, was a way to make a ranged attack with my gun, when necessary, that didn't completely suck. My character wields a self-designed, self-built gunblade that I really love as a flavorful part of the character, and so I naturally figured that he'd be using the gun part of it to attack at range.

But really, it doesn't have to mechanically be an actually gun attack. I could always just cast Scorching Ray and describe it as several blasts from the gun, perhaps using magical bullets.

hmm...

no offense, but it seems kind of like you're looking for some cheese... this ability already exists in two forms (both already mentioned- the myrmidarch magus archetype, and the arcane archer prestige class) and it appears you just want to get the power without having to invest any of the feats/replacements that it costs.

No offense, but maybe you should keep your judgments to yourself. If I were looking for cheese I'd be working on improving the tactic I'll be using 99.9999% of the time, which is melee Spellstrike/Spell Combat. My custom gunblade will be heavily enchanted over the course of the campaign, and I expect will be hitting +10 well ahead of the rest of the party. I certainly wouldn't be asking about ways to not use that weapon and instead use my completely unenchanted gun.

If I were looking for cheese I'd be asking for a feat that increases BAB. If I were looking for cheese I'd have tried to convince my DM to let my magus benefit from haste with Spell Combat, instead of deciding to drop the subject entirely after reading the opinions on these boards.

Instead, I was looking at a way to make my ranged attack, which I have used all of 1 round in the campaign so far (out of about 20 sessions of mostly combat), somewhat viable. It's about as far from cheese as you can get.

if you're willing to try to convince your GM to 'bend' the rules...

Okay, I think I'm going to stop responding to you here. If you can't discuss the subject without continually insinuating that I'm an evil powergamer having nastybadfun, then please refrain from participating at all.

Hrm. That could work as well. I have actually played with spell research already in this game, so there's also a precedent. And it would require less rules alteration as well. :)

Hrm. I can see not allowing it were it something that would see a lot of use. But as something that may come up maybe once every twenty sessions, if that? Mmm. I guess we just have different GMing styles. Nevertheless, I'll let my DM know what the prevailing opinions are and he can decide from there.

Thanks for pointing out the relevant archetype. :)

Two questions:

1. I've seen this ability mentioned a couple times as being part of a magus archetype. Could somebody please tell me which one?

2. If a non-archetype magus were to want to enchant a ranged weapon to have this ability, what would you say would be a fair price? Bear in mind that ranged combat would never be this magus' main specialty, I'd merely want to beef up his ranged damage on the very rare occasions when it might be needed.

I don't think you need necessarily be evil just because your god is. A deity, like a mortal, is more than just their alignment. But as someone already mentioned, there does need to be a kinship there...a unity of spirit, of purpose, even if methodology doesn't necessarily always coincide.

I once played a LE cleric of a CE deity, which is technically non-RAW, since it's 2 steps away on the Law-Chaos axis. The deity was the Devourer Wyrm, a being of total destruction.

My cleric absolutely wanted to cause death and destruction. He was a member of a small, heretical cult of the Devourer Wyrm that made their way in the world as mercenaries. They were cruel and merciless, but absolutely loyal to those who'd hired them (thus lawful), for as long as they'd been hired. As such, they were sure to find work in the middle of any conflict. Often on both sides.

My cleric used a wicked serrated greataxe in battle, and each time he felled a foe he would dedicate its soul to the Wyrm and suck out its remaining life force to empower him, giving him extra strength and temporary hp.

No, his violence and murder weren't as random as the more canonical followers of the Devourer Wyrm...but I'm willing to bet the Wyrm was pleased with him. :)

One thing that does strike me though with a lot of these suggestions is that they advocate for a tremendous investment in terms of spells per day devoted towards personal protection. Is this really how other people play the game? Keep eight or ten buffs of varying levels up at all time? and opening combat with lots of defensive stuff?

I can only speak for myself in this regard, and the answer is no. I keep up as many long-term buffs (hr/level or 10min/level) as possible, then usually one defensive buff at the start of each encounter. If the encounter runs long, then I might cast another depending on how threatened I'm feeling, but usually by mid-levels round/level is enough to last even tougher fights.

I think part of the reason it might seem this way based on this thread is because you're asking for defenses, so people are throwing every defensive idea/strat they can at you, not that they actually use all of them simultaneously. :)

Drink a potion is a standard action. Retrieve a stored item is a move action.

Using your hilt compartment as a potion flask combined with quickdraw could let you bypass the move action to retrieve a stored item, but it'd still be a standard action to drink it.

Not all low charisma characters need be ugly.

Just as all high charisma PCs need be beautiful.

There are ways to handle low, and high charisma, without basing it entirely on looks.

I'm well aware of this. But Alia doesn't have any of the other qualities I'd usually use to represent low charisma, such as difficulty talking to people, stand-offishness, annoyingly loud voice, etc.

It's really charisma (or lack thereof) entirely represented by creepiness...which I love.

The nice thing about the haramaki is that you can enchant it with defensive armor enchantments. Give it a +1 and then start stacking things on it other than armor. You'd still cast mage armor for your armor bonus (and the haramaki's armor wouldn't stack with that) but you'd get all the advantages of the armor enchantments, which would be the point.

For instance, I'd recommend Spell Storing. You could store a Displacement in it, which you could then bring up as an immediate action the instant you are hit with a melee attack. Not quite a passive defense, but very close to it. Other armor enchantments like Fortification, etc. would be fully passive.

Also, keeping Ablative Barrier up would give you some passive damage mitigation, and it's an hour/level spell so you could put it up at the start of your adventuring day and have it up all day. Again the armor bonus wouldn't stack with mage armor, but all its other benefits would still be in play.

Her personality is one that I mildly based off Alia Atriedes.

That is a fascinating depiction of a low charisma. I mean, Alia wasn't ugly. Wasn't stupid. Wasn't unwise. But would anyone other than her brother want to spend time around her? I think even her mother was weirded out by her.

Great concept.

I'm not sure arena-style duels really prove anything when it comes to D&D class comparisons. If we want to compare combat effectiveness, we should be comparing them against each other in a team setting against a typical D&D foe, since 99.99999% of the time, that's where and how they'd compete.

Raith did a great mock combat which pitted a ranger against a magus to compare their relative strengths. He and another poster did it by depositing the ranger into an actual combat encounter Raith had DM'd (the ranger replaced the damage-dealing paladin in his actual group) and they played out the encounter with Raith supplying the rest of the party's actions, and the other poster making the decisions for the ranger, which he had built.

The results were highly informative. Really, I think it's the only way to get a decently useful comparison between classes, as that's the scenario we see them in, in actual play.

Explaining the low charisma is easy.

Flatulence.

Uncontrollable, eye-wateringly potent flatulence. The kind that lingers. The kind that creates an invisible wall that you can almost see as it moves across a room by the way people react when it gets to them.

My DM has a dog with this issue. It's terrible. We flee when it happens, and he has to practically flood the room in air freshener to make it even breathable.

I don't care how someone tries to argue, Magus play a certain way. They use Spell Combat as often as they are able. Which basically means they will never benefit from the main benefit of an extra attack from haste and never use Speed from their Arcane Pool. If Sean K. Reynolds is trying to convince us all that that was the original intent when the class was designed, well I flat out don't believe him.

I agree. It's simply ridiculous to believe that they would add three different haste options for the magus, 2 of which--hasted assault and the speed weapon pool buff--affect the magus only, if they believed he wouldn't get the attack. Taking those abilities without the extra attack is a serious waste of resources.

I don't mind losing the extra attack. The magus has plenty else going for it. Though I do wish they'd replace hasted assault and the speed pool boost with something useful. Throwing/Returning might be fun.

It should be noted that in a home game, you can use the name and look of Tiamat all you want. It's simply not something that publishers can do without getting sued. :p

Chemlak did a great job of giving you an outline of five tough encounters, based on Tiamat's tradition five heads/colors.

I am confused. I don't see a 12th-level party defeating a single great wyrm red dragon, let alone the goddess of evil dragons...?

The "many more may remain hidden" part is the key to how this tribe could persist. Obviously there are many other tribes like them, and they find mates in those other tribes. His small tribe may have some customs that set them apart from the other tribes, but for breeding purposes they have to be part of a much larger population.

This scenario works for me.

Lord Pendragon wrote:

Are there any witch-only spells I should be looking at?

Do really have to mention Ill Omen?

Hrm. I'm not sure giving up a standard action is worth imposing a single re-roll on my foe. Now imposing *five* rerolls would be worth it, but then we're looking at a wand at CL 20, which I imagine would cost quite a bit. :p

1) Is it plausible that a half-orc tribe could have developed in this way. I'm inclined to allow it because I think it's an interesting and original idea.

Sorta. I don't want to get all science-y in a Pathfinder discussion, but I do not believe it's really viable for a tribe of 40 to have sustained itself over that length of time. There simply aren't enough individuals to sustain genetic diversity and survive various environmental hazards.

To be honest I'm not sure what such a tiny number gets him, story-wise. Even a thousand is a tiny number of people, all things being equal. There were more students at my high school. :p

As it stands I've been using extended heroism spells to help make up some of the difference on saving throws, spamming shield spells to keep my AC a little more competitive, and leaning heavily on quickened mirror images.

You're at the level now where AC matters less than other forms of defense, and to be honest trying to keep your AC up to the same level as your tanks would be far too costly for the benefit, since ideally you won't be tanking.

The Quickened Mirror Images are a very good base. You might consider keeping Improved Invisibility or Mislead up as well. Sure, some foes will have blindsight, but many still will not, and that's one more layer of defense they have to defeat to target you.

I presume you have Fly ready at all times as well, since against foes unable to fly--melee brutes mostly--being out of reach is also a superb defense.

I probably should have mentioned in the first post that I'm trying to avoid those two clichés.

Argh. They're no more cliche`s than a fighter with a greatsword. *grimace*

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled advice thread. :p

There's always that one guy in any group that is a little too involved in the game. The guy who sends the rest of the group emails on what his character's custom weapon might look like, or writes up snippets of fiction based on the party.

I am that guy.

*sobs*

Animal Archive wrote:

Hunt (DC 20): This trick allows an animal to use its

natural stalking or foraging instincts to find food and
return it to the animal’s handler. An animal with this
trick may attempt Survival checks (or Wisdom checks if
the animal has no ranks in Survival) to provide food for
others or lead them to water and shelter (as the “get along
in the wild” use of the Survival skill). An animal with this
trick may use the aid another action to assist Survival
checks made by its handler for these purposes.

Developing a new trick, Scout, seems to be a variation on the Hunt trick and so I would suggest it's a reasonable DC 20 new trick.

Sounds like a solid place to start. With a modest charisma it may take me a few weeks to successfully train my falcon to scout, but it should be a fun bit of detail to add to his downtime routine. :)

I actually like to use that access to get some utility, especially if you're looking at a high level campaign without a general caster. If the campaign has a strong political element, I'd take at least one spell that can guarantee at least some short term privacy against scrying.

That's actually a really good point. I've no idea how the campaign will develop between now and level 20. Currently our level of political chicanery is fairly know, but seeing as several of us are becoming more and more involved in organizations, it's entirely possible that the political element may present itself eventually. At least one of our clerics is climbing the ecclesiastic ranks in her church, and my magus is becoming more and more involved with a faction of the dragons of Argonessen.

I'll have to keep your suggestions in mind. It may be too early to tell, but that kind of utility could prove invaluable.

The only one I'm sure we won't need is Unseen Crew, since the party alchemist apparently has plans to build a crew of constructs for our airship. :)

My magus is investing in UMD (despite a modest charisma) but the trouble is that I am hardly an expert on all the various spells in PF. What are some of the most potent spells out there, that a magus might want to keep around, either on scroll or in a wand?

At first glance the paladin spell Eaglesoul seems quite nice, particularly since its long duration means a magus could UMD-cast it just as he's entering the dungeon and have it ready when needed inside.

Could I get a scroll of Summon Monster at the discounted Summoner's spell level?

Are there any witch-only spells I should be looking at? Or for that matter druid or inquisitor?

If you're a spellcaster of any kind, what are those must-have spells on your spell list that really stand out? Inquiring UMD-users want to know. :D

Oh, as you know my current character is a dex-based magus as well, so I immediately saw where you were coming from. Personally I am hoping that the Beastiary 4 might contain some additional monstrous humanoids to fill in the gaps in Monstrous Physique, most notably the lack of small and tiny-sized monstrous humanoids, and any at all that possess the pounce ability. Clearly the spells' designers didn't think pounce was too strong to be in granted by the spell line, after all.

I am definitely thinking that a single form would be much easier to balance, that's for sure. You could balance it against the "best" strength-based form from Monstrous Physique and call it a day, rather than worrying about all the myriad potential abilities of fey in general, and their relative power levels.

I'm not sure if I made it clear enough, but because I got the killing blow on the boss, it became a +2 Ghost Touch dagger. So it's worth 18,302 total. We get a 10% increase on whatever we sell.

Selling for over half and crafting for less than that same price does make it seem more possible. Our base does have a Blacksmith proficient in such skills, and being able to craft it for half price (i.e. 9,000 GP) does make it worthwhile and can obviously be reflavored as "reforging" the dagger.

Aaah, I did miss the ghost-touch part, my apologies for missing that. And yeah, it sounds like the money works out then.

Hopefully if you are upfront with your group they will be okay with the claiming and selling bit. You might want to remind them that they may want to do something similar themselves in the future. ;)

I respectfully request that you stop implying that I'm a scumbag. I'm surprised that infringements upon a mythical creature's supposed rights caused so much distress for you. I apologize.

Your claim of respect belies your passive-aggressive attempt to portray me as someone who experiences "distress" over the "infringements upon a mythical creature's supposed rights." Amusing, if ineffectual.

Nor did I call you a scumbag. Rather I suggested, and you--seemingly proudly--confirmed, that you were using the same logic in this discussion that supposedly "civilized" colonists did, when enslaving the "uncivilized brutes" of the old world.

I also find your other argument, that enslaving chimeras is morally acceptable due to their lack of humanity, intriguing given the plethora of non-human intelligent species in most D&D/Pathfinder worlds, both published and homebrew. Out of curiosity, do your own campaigns feature human-dominated worlds in which the elves, dwarves, halflings, giants, fey, and other non-human species are regularly enslaved by humankind? Or how about other, less humanoid-looking races? The dragons, centaurs, bugbears, etc.?

I highly suspect that you're merely stating a position in an attempt to inflame me--trolling, as it were--but then I'm in this discussion for its entertainment value myself, so I can hardly blame you. In either case, I'm curious to see how you'll respond. ;)

My groups have always gone the resurrection route, rather than reincarnation, but I'm not sure why you think they're completely different people. I'd think they'd be more like the exact same people, only in different bodies...

There's a lot of material for roleplaying, actually. If the ruler character has been reincarnated, is he still technically the ruler, or does the authority pass to his heir? If he has enemies, they could certainly argue that he isn't their beloved ruler, but an imposter trying to seize the throne with a preposterous reincarnation story. etc. etc.

This isn't a DM problem. It's a DM gift.

You act like I suggested enslaving other humans.

Judgement need not be passed. Let us help the OP.

I'm pretty sure your reasoning was exactly what was used to justify human slavery, so yes, I am drawing a parallel. At an Int of 4, chimeras are in fact as intelligent as a mentally-impaired human being. So what I'm suggesting is that not only is it akin to enslaving human beings, it's akin to enslaving mentally-impaired human beings.

In other words, despicable.

That doesn't mean it couldn't or wouldn't happen in a fantasy world. But like slavery of human beings, there's a morality involved which I'm suggesting the DM in question may not want to ignore.

The RAW isn't there to support it, but I don't see how the feat can't "re-fashion" a Dagger into a Greatsword (awkward usage, but still helpful). Thankfully for us, our base has a Blacksmith who is super-skilled in this stuff, so maybe I can convince the GM to have him "re-work" the Dagger into a Greatsword (name it the Spirit Reaver?).

Sorry, I wasn't clear. You sell the +2 dagger for half price. You use the money to craft a +1 greatsword for half price. Problem solved. :)

Of course that only works at +1/+2. Beyond that the prices don't match up. But I don't think you're supposed to be able to simply move enchantments around as you please. It'd make the kind of weapons you find completely irrelevant.