No, it gives you a campaign where the characters generally seek out foes with lower CR's. Probably CR8 at APL10 instead of CR10, for instance. That means they advance slower than in a vanilla campaign.
Actually, I would say that certain foes simply count as a higher CR in certain circumstances, so they shouldn't be too impeded in advancement (unless that's what you're aiming for).
I don't have a problem with slower level advancement. I cut my teeth on 1st edition and Basic/Expert after all. But in general, I don't mandate any particular rate of level advancement at all. Let me illustrate.
Say you're a fairly balanced but pretty optimized level 5 party with a henchman or two. You're looking for something to do, so you go and gather information about threats in the area using your 'face-man' characters, your local connections, and whatever divinations you can muster...you find the following
There's a tribe of orcs in the hills to the north that likes to prey on caravans. Given the habits of raiding bands of said orcs, you're probably looking at what would amount to CR 3 or 4 regular encounters with an occasional harder encounter. Their leader is purported to be a pretty strong warrior, but with no particularly notable tactical acumen.
There's a dragon living in the mountains to the west. He's big, red, and mean. He's eaten several parties of adventurers in the past couple of years. A tribe of humanoids supposedly serves as his eyes and ears and pays him tribute in cattle.
There's a tomb a few days march to the south that is full of undead, said to be ruled by a spectre.
The local lord is looking to recruit some plausibly deniable minions to lead a punitive raid against the slaveholding civilization a week's travel to the east.
And probably a number of others. The PC's in general pick their targets and what goals they want to pursue (as they gain prominence, the world will react more to THEM, but at the low and mid levels...
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What are some of the best magical beats for beast shape II and beast shape III? I can only find the dire tiger for animals. Also, if you know a thread to post a question like this? I am new ti these threads. Thanks,
Any favorites for magical beasts that work well. Dire tiger seems to be the current combat. Other magical beast combat forms and other one for tools, such as flying.
Elamdri - do you have links for the other parts of that guide you linked to? Seems really comprehensive but it is broken up into multiple parts - I'd like to see the other parts... [/QUOTE
Thanks for the suggestions. The beast shape III allows all of those and dire tiger?
Anyone got anything to add to this nice list?
- Absolutely anything of the Animal type from Tiny to Huge size or of the Magical Beast type from Small to Medium size. Lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) as well as dinosaurs make for some good Animal examples. As for Magical Beasts, you could turn into a basilisk, worg, trollhound, dweomercat, grodair, aranea, blink dog, bunyip, or krenshar just to name a few.
The bulk of Advanced Class Origins is made up of two page spreads for each of the ten new hybrid classes found in the Advanced Class Guide. Roughly one page is devoted to a discussion of common locations from where each hybrid class typically comes from, and the second page goes to mechanical options. The book then goes into new magic items, spells, and feats.
The flavor information is pretty much what a fan of Golarion would expect. Arcanists are from high magic societies, such as Absalom, Nex, and Geb; while skalds are from the Lands of the Linnorn Kings. I personally would have preferred more details on the less obvious choices. For example, skalds are apparently popular in the Taldor’s army, which is strange for the “empire in decline” to encourage raging warriors, and I would have liked to learn more about.
The meat of this book is the mechanical character options, which are to taste. For example, I like both the mechanics and flavor of the black blood bloodrager bloodline, and the seafaring dragon skald. However, some of the archetypes are for evil characters only, or are for very circumstantial builds. I do appreciate the callbacks to prior options, such as giving swashbucklers a whirling dervish archetype, and including scalykind and void blessings for warpriests. Each class spread has regional traits listed, some which are outrageously specific. For example, Lichblood can only be taken by characters from Belkzen with the undead bloodrager bloodline, and gives a +2 on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks only against orcs from Belkzen.
The book includes feats, magic items, and spells, of which the feats especially should have been in the Advanced Class Guide itself. Not just the infamous Fencing Grace (Dexterity to damage with the rapier), but Expanded Spell Kenning (allowing skalds to access the druid and witch spell list) and Pack Tactics (treating animal companions has fellow possessors of a teamwork feat).
Advanced Class Origins is recommended for players interested in the hybrid classes found in the Advanced Class Guide who are looking for a few additional mechanical options.
