M1R4-B3113's page

So reading the mechanics for Guardian I noticed two key pain points for the traditional frontliner Guardian:

1) Taunt makes you about as difficult to hit as a normal character, so the taunted enemy doesn't really mind being forced to attack you

2) Therefore, you will rarely if ever get the damage bonus from Ferocious Vengeance

So being the contrarian that I am my immediate thought was that if you aren't a melee character then you get to avoid the defensive penalties while your allies still get to reap the defensive benefits. Taunt has a 30 ft range, and can even be boosted to a 120 ft range, which clearly means that this is intended behavior. If you use a Meteor Shield as your ranged weapon you can still benefit from Shielding Taunt's DC improvement which is really important for a build that only cares about the taunt mechanic. Here's a mockup of what the feat build would look like:

1: Long Distance Taunt
2: Shielding Taunt
4: Area Cover
6: Reflexive Shield
8: Group Taunt
10: Shield from Arrows
12: Shield Salvation
14: Bloody Denial
16: Improved Reflexive Shield
18: Shield from Spells
20: Never!

You could and maybe should consider slotting Ranger archetype in there somewhere, using Hunt Prey just to double your range increment can be really nice. The most important part of this build is your team composition though; you really need a frontliner with Reactive Strike for this to make sense. But if you do, then getting taunted suuuucks for your enemy. The Fighter is harder to hit, hitting the Fighter means getting hit harder by the Guardian, and if you try to approach the Guardian you get whacked by the Fighter.

Personally I think this is hilarious and hope it gets even more support in the final version of the class. Give us Far Throw as a class feat Paizo.

My GM ran a homebrew oneshot and I brought an Exemplar; Ikons were Eye-Catching Spot, Titan's Breaker*, and Victor's Wreath. My allies were a Fire Kineticist, a Ruffian Rogue, and a Construct Inventor.

Overall, the class did what I envisioned. I wanted really big bonks and Fracture Mountains delivered exactly that, doing very competitive damage with the Rogue by loading most of that damage into one of two rounds. Probably helps that I never missed a swing, but hey, if it works it works.

The only real issue I had was how cumbersome it was to have two Transcends that do not feel good to use every round. Captivating Charm is, obviously, just plain terrible, and I would have simply taken something else if I wasn't determined to play exactly the sort of character who would have this ikon and try to find a place where it would be useful (I didn't). One Moment Till Glory is much better, but situationally so and the situation never came up. Either way I was usually stuck using Shift Immanence every other round, which felt terrible.

While Captivating Charm could certainly use a buff or a rework, I think the larger issue here can just be solved with more feats that give you generically good Transcend options for body and worn. The class feats are overwhelmingly favored towards weapon transcends in the playtest, which I assume will not hold true in the final release. It doesn't really feel like you need another transcend for your weapon since the base one and the one from your Dominion Epithet are likely to already cover the majority of situations. Maybe it'd help if the Root Epithet also gave a transcend option for your body ikon in addition to its current effect?

*We played Fracture Mountains with the assumption that the bonus damage is multiplied by your striking dice, so if you're surprised that I was happy with the damage I dealt that is why

I'm running with Eye-Catching Spot on my Exemplar because it is extremely thematic for the kind of character I'm playing and while the Immanence is fine it's hard to get around how tepid Captivating Charm is. Fascinated as written currently has a very narrow combat application, only really impacting the turn of a caster who wants to cast a buff spell.

I'm putting together a character for Abomination Vaults and have this idea in my head of a fervor witch/wizard who especially admires heroic wizards. Jatembe is the obvious go to for the kind of hero she'd admire but the character is a dwarf so I was wondering if there were any in-ancestry heroes that'd make sense for her.

The brace of pistols playstyle was talked up a lot in the playtest but looking at it more recently I'm struggling to find a build where this would be better than just having one gun you reload. You can use it to bring a variety of guns and pick the one that best suits the situation but if I'm using the gunner's bandolier I'm trying to emulate Victor Saltzpyre leaving a bunch of dueling pistols on the floor, y'know?

It isn't good for dual-wielding either with a melee weapon or another gun since it is incompatible with the blazons of shared power, which immediately eliminates the main concept I'd expect the bandolier to fulfill. It's definitely not good for Gunslingers since the draw action doesn't give you your reload ability, so you need to figure out another class for it. Maybe a Magus or Fighter/Wizard that wants to use their offhand on a true strike staff and can't keep a hand open for reloading? I dunno.

I'm considering putting together a performance combat campaign (yeah I know Ruby Phoenix is basically this, I have my reasons) and got this grand idea of appealing to specific factions of spectators with performance combat checks... which requires me to figure out how that'd work. I decided right off that I didn't want them to be Performance skill checks so it wouldn't hard-lock all players into being charisma characters. I also want it to be an action you have to declare, which means that it should be something that doesn't suck to use an action on just for reputation points. So this is my first draft:

FLOURISH (A)
You add a flourish to appeal to the crowd. If your next action is to make an attack roll or cast a spell with a DC, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to the attack roll or to your spell DC. If your next action is to make a skill check, this is instead a +2 bonus. On a success you gain reputation with a faction appropriate to the action.

I figured giving everyone easy access to +2 on their preferred strike was way too much, and I wanted to incentivize using Flourish on things like panache builders and grapples anyways. Does this seem fair?

Drifters/Pistoleros that intend to use melee weapons have a distinct issue that their accuracy is naturally worse with the melee weapon. You can fix this by taking certain archetypes that make your weapon proficiency scale as your highest proficiency, like Mauler to get legendary in bastard swords. I'm pretty sure I'm not misinterpreting this because this is already an understood interaction with Fighter's Weapon Mastery class feature and getting legendary scaling in multiple "groups".

Not sure if this is an unintended interaction, or if it's even a bad one, but it's something worth thinking about.

Fairly simple math question I suppose. Say you're a Monk with Dragon Style for a 1d10 backswing tail, but you also have 1d6 agile claws.

If you miss with your first strike, which attack has better average damage on the second hit?

Sustaining Steel looks good in a vacuum, but in the context of the Magus's 3-action routine I really don't think it justifies itself. I think if given the option I would absolutely still want Slide Casting on a greatsword magus.

So, that's what I propose. Get rid of Sustaining Steel and remove the handedness requirements from Slide Casting, making it the generalized melee synthesis. This would also make Raise a Tome work, though that also has issues with Striking Spell.

I haven't been following too closely on splatbook updates so if things have changed to make the Alchemist much better I could be wrong, but for this OP I'm working under the assumption the Alchemist is about as mediocre of a chassis as it was at launch.

The Investigator, on the other hand, seems quite good for Hyde-ing it up. It actually gets a proper martial weapon proficiency to work with and 4-5 free mutagens a day is totally fine and will be all you need most days. Bestial isn't great for the Investigator's combat routine but Quicksilver and Energy Mutagen both seem like they'd be quite valid damage options for an Investigator.

This isn't a rules question because unless I've missed something massive the book is quite clear on the matter (all spells with somatic components have the manipulate trait -> the manipulate trait provokes AOO's). It's more a philosophical question of if this is a desirable state.

PF2 has done a lot to make melee touch attacks more attractive than they were last edition, but I find this one issue discouraging me from going full on in a shocking grasp druid build. There's no casting defensively in this edition (and I'm glad it's gone) and the only real defense against oppy's melee casters get is a 25% chance not to lose the spell... not great, honestly. I think the worst part is that if you're in melee you might as well cast a ranged spell anyways since they provoke exactly the same number of AOO's.

Melee Touch Casters are so close to being a real thing, this is the only major hangup I have. Whether as a baseline rule or something you can feat into I think it'd be for best if shocking grasp didn't provoke the same as swinging a sword wouldn't.

The spell in question.

Illusory Creature is pretty neat as far as summoning spells go - with enough imagination you can effectively see it as "spend an action to hit the monster's weakness, whatever it may be". What really dampens its effectiveness is the fact that it disappears the moment it gets hit by anything, but... it doesn't seem like there's anything indicating that its Strikes must be melee? Maybe I'm missing something, which is why it's in Rules Discussion. But if I'm right then Illusory Creature looks much more attractive if you can make it a pixie shooting flaming arrows from cover.

One of the things that turned me off of playing Wild Shape Druids even though I quite like it conceptually in PF1 was how you had to transform into progressively larger and more extravagant forms to stay at full effectiveness - if your character concept was a wolf totem shaman, too bad, you better get used to the idea of transforming into a dinosaur at some point.

It doesn't seem like it's much different in PF2 either - even if you're building to make your attack bonus scale off of your own bonuses over those provided by Wild Shape your damage bonus is still dependent on the form you take, so even within animal form deciding to go Medium instead of Huge is reducing your damage significantly. This isn't even getting into all of the utility higher level forms can give you like reach, flight, etc.

It's possible I'm missing something here but I am going to have a very difficult time being enthusiastic about Wild Shape if the game assumes I'm eventually going to turn into a giant worm every combat no matter what my concept was.

In PF1 if you used a finesse weapon to perform a maneuver then your CMB was based on your dexterity rather than your strength. I didn't think this was still the case in PF2, but I saw someone state it was a while back with some confidence. I still haven't been able to find any confirmation within the book myself so I'm wondering if I'm just missing it or if my initial understanding was correct.

Can, for example, a Rogue with a light mace Shove using her dexterity modifier to the Athletics check?

Clumsy states that you "take a status penalty equal to the condition value to Dexterity-based checks and DCs, including AC".

Frightened states that you "take a status penalty equal to this value to all your checks and DCs".

Clumsy seems to define armor class as a DC, which would logically mean that Frightened also reduces your AC. This seems a little nuts though, and is more than the Shaken condition did in PF1 (where it penalized most everything except AC).

Monks get the unique ability to tailor their saving throw proficiencies to player preference. So what's the best way to do it? Should a high strength/high wis Monk double down on being good at will saves, or is it better to shore up what would otherwise be a weakness and get that Legendary proficiency in their reflex save?

Can a mounted Fighter use spring attack? Commanding your mount is its own action, which then allows your mount to perform specific actions - your mount can stride or step if you're trying to move, but spring attack is understandably not listed in the actions your mount can take. Is there some way around this that I'm not seeing?

This is something I pointed out back in the playtest so I'm pretty disappointed to see it's still a problem in the final version. To clarify, the Noble background (which allows you to pick charisma or intelligence) is made up entirely of benefits that are only good for intelligence characters.

You get training in Society, an Int-based skill; this by itself would be fine, as despite the lack of synergy with charisma it is a skill you want anyways so you can know things about the nobility. What is significantly less fine is the Courtly Graces feat, who's benefit is replacing two charisma skills in certain scenarios. If you planned on training Diplomacy and Deception anyways, Courtly Graces does nothing. Even worse that the Deception benefit is only for if you aren't actually a Noble. A character with this background doesn't need to lie about it!

I think that as it stands, if I were to make a charismatic noble I'd select Martial Disciple or Emissary for my background, the former giving Just Good Benefits to any martial character and the latter offering legitimate advantages to characters who want to be good at talking. Frankly Courtly Graces is just a bad feat and should be changed to something more generally useful for courtly characters.

One of the ways Pathfinder separates itself from similar systems is build diversity - the developers give you a set chassis to start from but a ton of modular options to adapt or radically change that chassis.

So lets do some character concepts that don't fit what you'd expect of the class listed on the character sheet. My first suggestion: the melee sorcerer. I think mixing it up in melee with touch attacks is going to be much better in this edition than it was in PF1 - you can use your casting stat to hit, d6 classes are much more durable than they were before, it's far easier to increase your dexterity and constitution without sacrificing your casting stat...

But the most important bit is that touch spells are just way better than they were in PF1. Shocking Grasp has gone from "Weapon Specialization for a Magus" to legitimately hitting like a truck, and will hit even harder (and have a higher chance of critting!) against many humanoid enemies.

I think a Draconic Sorcerer who uses their third action to cast Shield will be able to do great damage and have plenty of survivability. Shield gives you +2 AC with each cast because of blood magic, and if things get too dangerous you can heal yourself back up with Vampiric Touch. Being a melee character makes line attacks much easier to use without hitting allies as an added bonus (Grim Tendrils looks pretty good).

You can use mage hand to strike an opponent within the spell’s range. This is a melee attack that always deals 1d3 points of force damage. The mage hand has an attack bonus equal to your caster level plus your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier, whichever is highest. Spell resistance applies against this ability.

Does the "always" wording mean that Throw Punch's damage cannot be modified by any means, such as Power Attack or Sneak Attack?

So Chronicle of Legends is on the srd now and there's some pretty interesting content; of particular interest to me is the Eldritch Knight support.

The prereq feat is a slightly more interesting Spellstrike, but Explosive Weapon is VERY cool and makes the EK an entry point to a type of character that was previously not possible. So, what spells do you prepare with this character? The easy choice is elemental evocations like Fireball and Lightning Bolt, but I'm curious if those more experienced with the Wizard spell list have other ideas for tricksy things you can do with this feat.

I've been tinkering around with the idea of an Oath of the People's Council Paladin with the Flagbearer feat (and, eventually, a Banner of the Scarlet Rose). Unfortunately handedness is a bit of an issue; due to the flag being a... flag, I can't do the normal buffoonery sword n' board paladins use of holding her sword in her shield hand and then moving it back to her "wielding" hand.

I thought there'd be some options related to using my sword as a divine focus and being able to perform somatic components that way, and while I did find one obscure 3rd party option for it there don't seem to be any Paizo options and it still doesn't solve the problem of Lay On Hands being unusable. Other than that one wondrous item that lets you drop and pick up weapons as a move action, are there any other potential options I've missed? Paizo is preferred but I'd like to be made aware of 3rd party options of they do exist.

I'm not sure where exactly this thread should go, but I'm putting it here because it's primary focus is putting a particular weapon on display. If it should go elsewhere mods feel free to move it.

I have a lot of criticisms about PF2, but this thread is not about any of them: rather, it's about the new addition I love the most, namely weapon properties. I love the "build game" in Pathfinder as much as I do actually playing the game itself; I adore quirky additions that make me say "that's interesting. What do I do to make it good?" With the new properties weapon choice is added to the list of things I can tinker with to make a unique character.

Before I go into details about how it works, first let me list the "must take" class feats for the character build:

-Combat Grab
-Improved Combat Grab
-Certain Strike
-Desperate Finisher
-Savage Critical
-Weapon Supremacy

The build "comes online" with Certain Strike and the rest is just gravy, though it is very good gravy and not something you want to skip when you have the opportunity to pick them up. This Fighter build is essentially an experiment to get the most out of the Forceful property; I'm using the Orc Necksplitter partially because I need a 1-handed weapon for Combat Grab but mostly because of unabashed orc favoritism. I do think unlocking Combat Grab makes the Necksplitter preferable over the glaive but there's definitely some room for debate on that.

All right, so you're a level 20 Fighter and you have two feats that give you extra strike actions; Weapon Supremacy gives you free Haste, and Desperate Finisher means you can trade out the reaction you aren't using anyways for another Strike. The way you're going to dump all these attacks is as follows: Strike->Combat Grab->Certain Strike->Certain Strike->Certain Strike.

There is unfortunately not a good 1-action Open Strike so we have to go vanilla for our first action, but after that we have some juicy abilities going on. Even at a -5, you're a Fighter and Combat Grab is very likely to succeed, so you have your target grabbed. Now you Certain Strike over and over again on the poor sucker, having not a care in the world about the -10 hit penalty because even on a miss you do plenty respectable damage.

How respectable, you ask? Let's compare the necksplitter to a more standard choice for an Open Hand Fighter, the longsword. A +5 Longsword is going to do 6d8+7 damage, or 34 average, or 13 minimum. The necksplitter does 6d8+19 damage, or 46 average, or 25 minimum. 25 near-guaranteed damage for three actions a round is pretty dang gud! I think most people can agree that +12 to damage is probably worth a feat. If anything, I might have just proven that Forceful is too powerful. Oops.

Combat maneuvers are a lot better base line in PF2 than they were in PF1 - you can use any of them as long as you're trained in Athletics without further character resource expenditure. In PF1 you had to lock yourself into a specific combat maneuver you wanted to be good at, while in PF2 you can disarm humanoid targets and grapple rhinos.

This is all great and a very positive change, but... there doesn't seem to be any way to increase your effectiveness beyond this baseline level of good? My biggest issue is that as far as I can tell there is no way to remove the "no greater than one size larger" restriction on maneuvers, a restriction that wasn't there for every maneuver in PF1. This means that despite getting your level to Athletics and having more fair numbers to shoot for combat maneuvers still scale horribly into later levels as bigger enemies become more and more common. A skill feat that, for example, lets you use maneuvers on enemies two size categories larger at Master and removes the restriction entirely at Legendary would go a long way to making maneuvers more consistently effective and would actually be a Cool Thing you can do with higher level skill feats, which is currently rather rare. "At Legendary Athletics you can suplex a Great Wyrm" is the kind of thing I would actually be excited about as a high level martial player.

It doesn't make much sense that a Cleric with the Acolyte background is always going to have an inferior Lore(Her God) roll compared to her Religion bonus. The various Lores should have their stat dependency changed to match the knowledge skill that the Lore in question replaces; this means most of them will still be Int based due to keying off of Society, but it solves the problem of the uneducated Shoanti tribeswoman being bad at using her Hunting Lore skill.

While I was putting together my Half-Orc Cleric of Gorum (still a major gripe that I have to waste my first ancestry feat to play the race I want but that's not what this thread is about) something occurred to me about the bonus Background feats. In my example I gravitated towards the Warrior background because I thought it was the obvious choice for the character, and I noticed that the bonus feat the background gives is a Craft feat. I had no intention of making this character a crafter (if I had I would have gone for the blacksmith background) and even if I did I wouldn't get half of the benefit of Quick Repair because Clerics can't be Masters at crafting.

So, essentially, my Background is giving me a dead feat that I have no desire to use. Even if I wanted to use it I would be getting punished by the signature skill system for picking a class that Paizo has decided is off flavor from what I'm trying to do (except, y'know, Cleric of Gorum. Pretty fighty). I'm not sure what to say about this other than that we need skill feats that actually fit the backgrounds provided and that the signature skill system is absolutely awful, but this turned out to be a glaring issue that stopped my character generation in its tracks so I figured it was worth the post.

When it was previewed, Superstition Totem was one of the options I was excited about the most; a massive, flavorful restriction in exchange for an exceptional benefit is what was promised.

Well, the massive restriction is there but the payoff certainly is not. Superstition Resistance is outright worse than PF1's Superstition, and the divide is only greater if you factor in the Human FCB. The totem's Raging Resistance doesn't even do anything against half the casters in the game. Oh, and just to rub salt in the wound, Spell Sunder has been pushed back six levels later than you get it in PF1. So the Barbarian who has given up everything to be the ultimate anti-magic warrior can dispel magic 7 levels later than a caster can.

While I focus in on this particular option because Barbarian is one of my favorite classes, I consider this Vow of Poverty level trade off to be indicative of a larger problem that every martial class deals with: martial options almost universally are inferior and come later than caster options. A class feat is a greater investment of character options than a spell choice, and yet martial class feats are both later and weaker options than what casters do by simply casting a spell. After reading this book I have to question if Paizo's intention was ever to even the martial/caster disparity, but if the developers genuinely intended to make martial classes better then I can say with confidence they have failed utterly.

So I was considering playing a Mesmerist for an upcoming game, naturally built for Painful Stare because I love melee more than anything. But as I was building the character I realized that... she has nothing to boost her accuracy? Bards have Inspire Courage, Clerics have Divine Favor, pretty much every 3/4 BAB class that is intended to have "fight with a sword" as an option has some way to bring their to-hit up to at least match that of a full BAB class without other bonuses.

I'm not seeing anything like that with the Mesmerist; as far as I can tell the only spell the class gets that can boost its melee power is Alter Self and that's it. Am I missing something or does crippled accuracy make this concept largely non-viable?

So this is an aesthetic thing I really like-you can largely blame fire emblem myrmidons for it. I'd be quite happy if you could, say, buy expert proficiency in unarmored fighting even if you're not a monk.

So favored class bonuses are usually both boring and bad; no one is getting excited about +1 to resist trip maneuvers and would much rather take the health or skill point. There are some that are pretty imaginative though, and help encourage concepts that would otherwise be non-viable; I started thinking about this when I specifically noticed the Catfolk FCB for monks, which gives you a scaling atk/dmg bonus to claw blades and lets you treat them as a monk weapon. Dwarf Swashbucklers have a similar thing where they can choose to improve their Precise Strike damage with picks.

Anyone aware of other FCB's like this, that make you think about an option that would otherwise be dismissed as totally non-viable? I love stuff like this and would be happy to explore more of it.

Oozeform Alchemist

Whether by accident or design, some alchemists have permanently transformed themselves into a strange type of ooze; their bodies the very essence of alchemy, such an alchemist can spontaneously invigorate herself with alchemical concoctions created from her own body.

Alchemical Defenses
The Oozeform is not proficient with any weapons or armor. She adds her Intelligence modifier to her AC and CMD, and receives DR 4/Slashing. This damage reduction improves by 2 at 4th level and every two levels thereafter, to a maximum of DR 14/slashing at 20th level.

This replaces the Alchemist's normal proficiency.

Oozeform (Su)
Rather than her race's normal base form, the Oozeform Alchemist's base form is that of a blob of goo that has the same volume and weight. She treats her creature type as both ooze and the base creature type from her race for the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as bane weapons and a ranger's favored enemy). She is immune to critical hits and precision damage and cannot be flanked. However, she has no magic item slots and she cannot benefit from armor, cast spells from other classes, or use any magic item that requires activation, is held or is worn on the body. The Oozeform cannot wield weapons, and instead has a single slam attack that advances at the same rate as the Shifter's Claws ability. The Oozeform can communicate normally and is capable of maintaing a vaguely humanoid form if she so chooses.

The Alchemist may cause an alchemical reaction in her body to enhance a physical attribute. She receives a +2 natural armor bonus and a +4 alchemical bonus to her Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution; this improves to a +4 natural armor bonus and +6 alchemical bonus at 12th level and a +6 natural armor bonus and a +8 alchemical bonus at 16th level. The Alchemist must use a standard action to activate this ability, and can maintain it each round with a free action. She may maintain this ability for a number of rounds equal to her Alchemist level plus her intelligence modifier.

This ability replaces Mutagen.

Glutton For Magic (Su)
The Oozeform is capable of dissolving magic items within herself and absorbing their power. When she consumes a worn magic item, it is destroyed and the bonus it would bestow becomes permanent. If these bonuses are dispelled in any way she may reinstate them as a standard action. Normal slot restrictions still apply (so if you consume an item in the shoulders slot, you cannot maintain this bonus if you consume another shoulders slot item).

Ooze-Bodied Alchemy (Su)
The Oozeform Alchemist performs alchemy by mixing the appropriate chemicals in her body, and can do so spontaneously rather than preparing them ahead of time. She is a spontaneous, intelligence-based caster with the same number of spells know and spells per day as a Bard. The oozeform can only target herself with spells she casts.

This ability replaces Alchemy and Swift Alchemy.

Compression (Ex)
An Oozeform gains compression as per the universal monster rule.

This ability replaces Brew Potion.

Malleable Form (Su)
The Oozeform Alchemist's form is highly malleable and full of infinite possibilities. Starting at second level, she receives a pool of evolution points equal to her class level, and can select any evolution from the Unchained Summoner list, ignoring form or limb requirements (but not level requirements, for which she treats her Alchemist level as her Summoner level). She may change the way her evolution points are distributed every time she gains an Alchemist level. The only natural attack evolution she may take is the slam evolution, though she may take this evolution up to two times at second level, three times at seventh level, four times at twelfth level, and five times at seventeenth level. Slam attacks taken this way advance identically to her initial slam attack.

The Oozeform adds transmogrify to her spell list, treating herself as an eidolon for the purposes of the spell.

This ability replaces Discoveries and Grand Discovery.

Acidic Ooze (Su)
The Oozeform Alchemist may toss acidic globs at her opponents. This is identical to and replaces the Bombs class feature, except they do acid damage instead of fire.
------------------
So this ended up being almost more of an alternate class than an archetype, but this is my take on the "what the oozemorph should have been" concept. I decided to use the Alchemist as the starting point because I personally prefer the idea of becoming an ooze through a freak laboratory accident than being some kind of weird, niche druid.

Thoughts, opinions, criticisms? Malleable Form might be a little excessive but at the same time I feel like it helps a ton with the feeling of being able to mold your shape into anything you want, which is one of the things that stick out for me when I think of playing an ooze character.

The White Wolf:

All around is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley's canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the unfamiliar alley splits, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps - slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave.

A chill runs down your spine - something is in that fog, something terrible and beyond your imagining. And yet, you hold your ground; courage is one of your finest attributes after all. Though perhaps, not among your wisest.

The mist parts, now mere steps behind. A mask of gray rags emerges, strips of something fleshier than fabric worming and constricting across a body that's almost humanlike - but too lean, and far too flexible. Gauzy gray ribbons reach out like tendrils, each grasping for less doubtful flesh to claim.

You stand tall in front of your friends, whoever they are, ready to face down the monster. It approaches with slow, creaking steps, the fog lingering at its footsteps. With each step closer it takes, you feel smaller and smaller, until it is towering over you. You stand trembling, dropping your blade with a clatter onto the alley's cobblestone. The creature raises its right hand, and with a mere flick of the wrist slices your throat clean. You are dead before you even hit the floor. As the blood oozes onto the cobblestone, it moves and shifts to write out a single word: "ME."

Morvan Fellis:
You look on in horror as your burly companion is slain. You have to get organized, you have to fight back; you shout out at your remaining companions to hold their positions, to be ready to defend themselves.

You have no time to see if they comply before the creeping fog surrounds you. Your vision is blurred with yellow, and you are blinded to the others, to the buildings around you, to the cobblestone below... All you can see is the masked horror, mere inches from your face. Long, bony fingers rise to meet your face, and its wretched claws pluck out your eyes. You scream in anguish and horror, writhing on the ground as blood drains from your head. Finally you still, the streaks of blood scribing out a word: "UP."

Feimramdem:
You cackle madly as the monster slays your compatriots one by one. The creature stands over its latest kill, its back turned to you, and you see the opportunity to strike; what pleasure it will be to best such a cruel beast.

You charge it with a warrior's cry, your weapon aimed for the nape of its neck. Mere moments before you strike, the beast's arm impossibly contorts behind its back and seizes your neck. The shock causes you to drop your blade as the beast turns to look upon its quarry face to face, squeezing your fragile neck harder and harder. Just as you feel your last breath on the horizon a horrible pain enters your gut, the creature's claw embedding itself into your stomach. Blood drips from the wound as you fade away, suspended and helpless, and it spells the following: "SAVE."

Rakheet:
They're dead. Everyone is dead. Your friends, so much bigger and stronger than you, rendered helpless against this... this beast. You have to run, you think, run away as fast and as far as you can. So you run. You run as far as your little legs will take you, scurrying away with a completely understandable cowardice. The yellow fog surrounds you, but you do not care, because you know that every step takes you away from that monster, every step is one step towards salvation from The -

You come to a careening stop as you see a figure in front of you. It wears a mask of gray rags, with strips of something fleshier than fabric worming and constricting across a body that's almost humanlike. You fall prone as you stumble and roll in shock, down and vulnerable in front of the monster. It places a ragged foot on your head, and steps down. As blood drips from its foot, it spells out one final word: "WAKE."

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All four of you awake in a grimy, unfamilar dungeon. The two humans share a cell, with Feimramdem and Rakheet in their own individual cells, all secured with heavy iron bars. None of you recognize anyone else. You all notice that you have nothing with you except the clothes on your back.

"Wake up, damn it!" An unfamiliar man strapped to a table in the center of the room screams, his panic cutting through the claustrophobic near dark. Another figure stands above him, unsettlingly thin and wearing a blood-smeared doctor's coat. She circles the table casually, spinning one blade of a broken pair of pruning shears, which glints in the dull light of the lamp suspended overhead. With careless cruelty, the doctor draws the blade across the bound man's bare thigh, releasing a tortured wail. A smaller table sits by the larger one carrying a variety of implements useful for cutting flesh.

What do you do?

Please check in here with your alias to verify you saw you were accepted; I'll have the gameplay thread up today or tomorrow. If you'd like to modify your character sheets based on the recent update to Spheres of Might just say so here.

You awake from your nightmare in a dark cell, a cold sweat chilling your skin. How did you get here? You don't remember. You don't remember anything.

Strange Aeons is a narrative of cosmic horror; monsters and madness creep around every corner. This group will be a little different from most Pathfinder parties: you'll have to face these foes using only martial characters, with no more casting than a Paladin or Ranger.

Instead, we will be using the Spheres of Might 3rd party product to ensure a variety of party roles can be fulfilled.

I'm planning on picking four people for this, though I may go up to five if I can't decide. Party synergy will play a factor in who I pick, so if you'd like to put forward two or three character concepts with different roles in mind you may feel free. Recruitment will be open for two weeks, ending on May 19th. Good luck!

Oh, and if you have any questions about Spheres, feel free to ask either here or by PM; I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

So I've recently become enamored with Spheres of Might - a 3rd party ruleset designed to make martials just a bit more quadratic and build-diverse. I've used this system as a player once to great success and now I want to GM with it. Still in beta of course but quite playable as-is.

As such, I thought it'd be cool to run a game where all party members are martial characters (defined as having no spellcasting or 4th level casting) using SoM to ensure the party still has the full breadth of combat roles fulfilled. My first choice would likely be Strange Aeons for the AP, though I'd consider other options if there was heavy enough interest.

So one of the things that really annoys about Pathfinder is the inability of martials to heal themselves outside of Paladins, but I'm gonna put this out here in case anyone knows of something I've missed.

I'm currently playing an Avenger Vigilante who over the course of the campaign I have wanted to make more survivable. We're using Spheres rules so I have an ability that lets me convert some of the damage I take into nonlethal, which is cool because it doubles the effect of healing on me but is less cool because other than the occasional cure from one of our backliners I don't have any way of restoring HP.

I'm wondering if there's a feat somewhere I can take that would allow me to self-heal. If there's a third party option you know of feel free to suggest it, obviously the gates are already open on that so I can try to pitch it to my GM. It's an E6 campaign so it has to be something available in the low levels.

I'm really excited about this archetype but wanted to get the forum's opinion on some rules questions first:

1. When changing into your bestial identity, do you have to always change into the same type of animal? IE, if I were to make a half-orc wolf vigilante I wouldn't be able to pick a hawk for utility purposes? At first I thought the answer would be yes, but the language on what beast shape abilities you get makes it unclear; I'm not even sure if a wolf-themed vigilante would get the tripping bite for being a wolf.

2. Continuing on from the first question, do you have to select abilities that the creature you're flavoring your identity around has? It seems to follow the same sort of rules as the Beastmorph Alchemist on my reading, which would mean that you can have a pouncing bear, which is awesome.

I'm building a Psychic Detective and trying to understand how this particular phrenic amplication works. On its own, it seems simple enough; give up a spell slot, gain an enhancement bonus to a physical stat equal to that slot's level. Not a bad ability for an Investigator doing a STR/DEX hybrid build who needs ways to boost her strength.

My confusion comes in because of the general description of phrenic amplication. The implication seems to be that using the ability is part of casting a spell, but my reading of psychofeedback would mean that using psychofeedback does not involve casting a spell at all. Is this particular ability intended to be an exception to the rule? Does "sacrifice" not mean what I think it means and you actually do still get the spell's effects after applying the amplification? Or even the silliest possible explanation, that I need to cast a spell and then give up an additional spell slot to use psychofeedback.

I think the answer is probably that it's just an exception and no spells are cast when you use this ability, but I'd feel more comfortable bringing this to a PFS table with the rules forum agreeing with me, haha.

This is the official recruitment thread for my Emerald Spire game. Character creation rules are as follows:

-First and foremost, we will be using the Kirthfinder set of house rules; since this is largely a test for me on how this ruleset functions I ask that you select only the classes listed in the document, rather than pulling from other sources (Paizo or otherwise).

-Character should be built with the Heroic Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8).

-Paizo races are allowed... within reason. The Emerald Spire is under the control of a Chelish city, and you need the permission of that town's leadership to enter it. As much as I love them goblin characters will not work.

-In addition to your character sheet I would like a short blurb on your character's personality and why they might be interested in the Spire. This is primarily a dungeon crawl so roleplaying opportunities will mostly be up to the party; since I enjoy both the numbers game and the roleplaying aspect of Pathfinder preference will be given to submissions that show some proficiency in both.

-Characters who are not fit to function with a party are completely non-negotiable; backstabbers and thieves need not apply.

I'll keep submissions open for two weeks, making the deadline March 5th at midnight. I'm probably forgetting to say something important here so feel free to ask any questions that come to mind.

So long story short, I've been researching the Kirthfinder system (basically a heavily house ruled version of Pathfinder designed to give martials Cool Things as well as other changes that I think are pretty neat) and would like to play it. Realizing that the chances of an open recruitment popping up for Kirthfinder for me to join are next to zero, I decided to start my own!

I'm not really sure how many people are interested in this thus "interest check" rather than recruitment.

I hear a lot about this book about how amazing it is for martials and how it lets full mundanes do truly impressive and impactful things, but I honestly just don't see it. Nothing I saw while going through the contents really wowed me, and when I had a player in a game I ran use a Warlord it basically just played like a TWF Slayer with slightly better numbers and the ability to move and attack a bit better.

So I want you to show me why it's good. Don't compare to the Fighter; I want to see how Path of War stacks up against the absolute best of Paizo's full BAB offerings. How do the PoW classes stack up against the Barbarian, Bloodrager, and Paladin? What does the Warlord have that is as impactful and awe-inspiring as these classes' abilities?

I'm putting together a melee Occultist and I can't seem to find a duration on the focus powers. Am I missing something or are you telling me that as soon as I have a +1 Falcata I can just have it be keen forever for 1 mental focus?

While all Bloodragers have magic in their veins, some have more magic than others. Spellcrazed Bloodragers are infused with the very essence of arcane magic, and are far more potent casters than their brethren.

Enhanced Spellcasting
At 1st level, the Spellcrazed Bloodrager receives 3 cantrips from the sorcerer spell list as bloodrager spells known. Additionally, the Bloodrager receives an additional spell per day of each level. This modifies the Bloodrager's spellcasting.

Spellcraze (Su)
Instead of gaining increased physical might, the Spellcrazed Bloodrager taps into his inner connection to the arcane and enhances his magical prowess. Upon entering spellcraze, the Bloodrager receives a +4 morale bonus to Charisma and Intelligence as well as a +2 bonus to will saves (this scales up as normal upon receiving the Greater and Mighty Bloodrage abilities). The Bloodrager may make Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft checks while in a Spellcraze. The Bloodrager may never use non-bloodrager spells while in a spellcraze, even if he has an ability or feat that says he can. This ability otherwise works as normal for bloodrage, which it replaces.

Bloodstrike (Su)
At 4th level, the bloodrager learns to infuse his weapons with his own arcane power. As a swift action, when the bloodrager casts a touch spell, he can choose to have his weapon carry the charge of the spell instead of his hand. When he delivers a touch spell with his weapon he can do so as part of a melee attack made with his weapon. If he drops the weapon or the weapon is disarmed while carrying a charge, the charge is lost. This ability replaces the 4th and 12th level bloodline powers.
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So the idea here is to have a Bloodrager archetype that can actually use the many Bloodrager spells with DC's attached to them. Spellcrazed stacks with Metamagic Rager in case you really need to Heighten your spells; between the two of them your Ghoul Touches and the like should have very competitive DC's. Thoughts, reviews, suggestions, etc. are of course welcome.

The Steelskin Fury knows that armor is for the weak and feeble. True warriors can march boldly into battle with nothing but the strength of their own hide to protect them.

Rage (Ex)
The Steelskin Fury loses the ability to rage if wearing any sort of armor.

Steel Skin (Ex)
While raging, the Steelskin Fury gains DR/- equal to her constitution modifier.

This ability replaces Fast Movement and the rage power gained at 2nd level.

Bold Pride (Ex)
The Steelskin Fury's power derives from an overabundance of confidence. At 4th level, she gains a bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all Saving Throws while not wearing any armor.

This ability replaces the rage power gained at 4th level.
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Everyone knows that armor is the most useless piece of equipment in fantasy; a Halfling Expert with a wooden stick can pierce it like its nothing. So why should you wear it at all? The Steelskin Fury replies with "you shouldn't", and does it with aplomb.

This is an archetype intended to be stacked with Invulnerable Rager; it does not work without it. The idea is to pile on so much DR that it does not matter that a typical CR 1/3 goblin can hit you on a 2, because you'll be taking 0 damage anyways. I went ahead and threw in a charisma-based bonus as well, because if you're going to go out to battle in your undergarments you might as well look good doing it.

This is Chompy. Though the way Chompy moves and fights is similar to those fancy Swashbucklers Chompy is not a charismatic person. He's not very smart, either. He never even learned how to use a sword. What he does do is bite people, and he does that well.

Chompy is an attempt to make a viable character out of only ever making one attack per round (and not being a wildshaping druid). He's built around the concept of having your cake and eat it too; Precise Strike is designed to keep up with the benefits of two-handing a weapon, but by using only a single primary attack Chompy can use Precise Strike while still getting 1.5 Power Attack and all the other goodies.

The weapon stats on Chompy's sheet assume Challenge is active but that his order abilities are not. Chompy's damage unfortunately drops off significantly against enemies that were not issued a challenge. Thus the selection of Order of the Flame; the idea is that Chompy should be able to keep a challenge going indefinitely.

This is more of a thought experiment than anything. The primary advantage of Chompy is that he has zero reliance on full-attacking, and can even manage difficult terrain quite well (all he loses is 4 points of damage from HotC) unlike his barbarous competitors. With Spring Attack he has no need to fear getting full attacked by enemies, so he reduces the effective DPR of his foes drastically without hurting his own at all.

Divine Spellcasting
The Choir Singer receives his spells as divine inspiration from his deity, and his spells are considered divine rather than arcane for all purposes. This modifies the Bard's spells.

Religious Lore
A Choir Singer adds his class level to all Knowledge (Religion) skill checks and may make such skill checks untrained. He also receives a bonus equal to his charisma modifier on skill checks related to his deity. This replaces Bardic Knowledge.

Clerical Training
Though not a full Cleric, the Choir Singer is capable of casting some spells usually excluded from his list. At 2nd level and every 4 levels thereafter, the Choir Singer may select one spell from the Cleric spell list as a bonus spell. This spell must be of a level he can cast. This ability replaces Versatile Performance.

Domain
At 3rd level, the Choir Singer gains the use of a single domain granted by his deity. He gains the domain powers as if he had an effective Cleric level of his Bard level -2, and may use his charisma modifier instead of his wisdom modifier for the purposes of domain powers. He does not gain the use of the domain spells. This ability replaces Inspire Competence.
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So the "Choir Singer" basically exists for that reference. I think it's a neat idea though, and I think it makes for a good high-skilled party buffer where the Inquisitor is primarily a self-buffer.

Graceful combatants who bring poise and precision to the battlefield, Battle Dancers favor elven weapons that allow them to use their dexterity while still striking with the force of a two-handed weapon. They are often trained from an early age by great Elven warriors.

Skills
A Battle Dancer does not gain Bluff, Intimidate, Perform, or Sleight of Hand as class skills. She instead gains Heal, Kn. History, Kn. Nature, and Linguistics as class skills.

Student of Battle (Ex)
All Battle Dancer abilities (such as Panache) that use her charisma modifier instead use her intelligence modifier. A Battle Dancer may use a finessable Elven weapon as if it was a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon for the purposes of all Swashbuckler abilities.

Poise (Ex)
At 2nd level, while she has at least 1 panache point, the Battle Dancer receives a +1 bonus to will saves. She receives an additional +1 bonus at 6th level and every 4 levels thereafter. This replaces charmed life.

Elven Finesse (Ex)
At 3rd level, while she has at least 1 panache point, the Battle Dancer may use her dexterity modifier instead of her strength modifier when wielding a finessable Elven weapon. This replaces Precise Strike.

Power Attack
At 4th level, the Battle Dancer receives Power Attack as a bonus feat even if she does not meet the prerequisites. This replaces the Swashbuckler bonus feats received at 4th and 12th level.

Elven Weapon Training (Ex)
At 5th level, a Battle Dancer gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with finessable Elven weapons. While wielding such a weapon, she gains the benefit of the Improved Critical feat. These attack and damage bonuses increase by 1 for every 4 levels beyond 5th level (to a maximum of +4 at 17th level). This ability replaces Swashbuckler Weapon Training.

Elven Weapon Mastery (Ex)
At 20th level, when a Battle Dancer threatens a critical hit with a finessable Elven weapon, that critical is automatically confirmed. Furthermore, the critical modifiers of such weapons increase by 1 (×2 becomes ×3, and so on). This ability replaces Swashbuckler Weapon Mastery.
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A few thoughts:

1) Yes, I know the Battle Dancer doesn't get proficiency in either of her signature weapons. This is as intended; it allows me to make it an Elf archetype without excluding other races from using it. Elves get the proficiency for free, while others would need to feat into it (IE get training from an Elf).

2) Poise is superior to Charmed Life like Steel Will is superior to Bravery.

3) For a finesse character that doesn't get Precise Strike, free Power Attack is absolutely worth two feats.