Malificia's page

My character concept is a Dhampir noblewoman Rogue/White-Haired Witch/Noble Scion.

She is a (somewhat reluctant) blood-drinking fanged Dhampir whose favourite tactic is to appear harmless (Bluff, Sneak, etc) then Sneak Attack with free Grapple and subsequently Pin with her hair, followed by a Sneak Attack fang bite on the pinned victim.

Assuming all rolls succeed, the first (hopefully surprise) attack will be hair damage + Sneak Attack + free Grapple. The second round should then be converting the Grapple into a Pin. At that point it becomes very one-sided and all subsequent rounds can consist of fang-based Sneak-Attacks as the opponent is denied Dex to AC and cannot move or attack until he escapes. Blood everywhere. Burp. Much hand-wringing and moralising.

As the concept relies on both multi-classing and a strong Sneak Attack, however, I wondered if anyone had come across a Feat to allow the Witch (and Noble Scion) levels to count as Rogue levels for the purpose of Sneak Attack. It is a bit of a long shot, but similar level substitution Feats are available for the primary powers of other classes. I have searched through the Feats but these things have a habit of hiding in unusual places, having titles that don't make them easy to spot.

Against enemy groups of three or four I'm usually fine. When they get more than that, however, my attacks seem to get bogged down in some sort of combat-glue.

I will target an enemy and tap the appropriate key, only to be subject to a few rounds of attacks before the attack has any effect on the target. It is worse when I am attacked by mixed melee and missile and want to switch target to the melee enemy. I try to click or Tab but the selected enemy is still the missile user. I then go for the missile spell to attack him, hoping to knock him out before I'm cut down by Mr Melee.

No such luck.

I am informed that he is out of range. I assume that the server now has the melee opponent targeted but no, he has taken no damage. Some random innocent in a random dimension has apparently just been hit by that last attack.

In the struggle to target and make the attacks, my opponents turn me into mince. Even drinking Cure potions doesn't help, because the potion doesn't take effect until after I die. Great, not only am I dead but I have just wasted a Cure potion.

It came to a head just now. To recover my husk I had to fight the same bandit group four times, each time with the same result - death by server/connection lag. By the time I picked up my gear it was hardly worth recovering.

Now I may not have the fastest broadband connection or the highest-spec computer, but neither are exactly slouches and happily cope with every other MMORPG I play.

Does anyone else suffer this issue?

Ever since seeing the pun in the name, I've been pondering building a whip that transmits Ghoul Touch with an attack.

The problem is, I can't see anything that corresponds to the combination I'm looking for. Essentially it would be a weapon (whip) that allows the casting of Ghoul Touch with a touch attack.

Should I be looking at basing it on a wand and then adding in the cost of a whip (which I guess would have to be at least +1 to have a Special Quality), or is there a better way to go about it? Obviously, the ideal situation would be to have unlimited charges, but I can live with a wand-like 50 or so charges before requiring a recharge. A single use (á la Spell Storing) is too restrictive for my vision of the whip.

The Weaponwand spell seems to offer a possible solution but obviously requires the casting of that spell and is therefore limited to 1 min/caster level.

Any thoughts or ideas?

I have an okami (think wolfen kitsune) barbarian/druid who prefers to get stuck in using natural weapons. With the racial bite attack and two claws from the rage power, I get three attacks per round at full BAB.

I am looking to buy an Amulet of Mighty Fists. The Holy special ability appears to be great way to make the GM throw dice at me, however.

Given that most of the opponents we meet are Evil, an amulet with the Holy quality would make all three of my natural attacks inflict an extra 2d6. That's a potential 6d6 extra, on top of the 3x +7 I am getting from 20 STR plus +4 STR for raging.

Now I appreciate that I need to hit with each attack for this to happen, but the potential added damage seems awfully high for a 9th level barbarian/druid. Spellcasters can throw these numbers about but they have limited spells, and the only small limitation I have is the number of rounds of raging, with which I can see out most days' encounters quite happily.

Should I shapeshift into a creature with even more attacks, I will be increasing the potential damage even further - possibly to the point of being able to one-shot a BBEG.

I have looked at the Holy ability and it doesn't seem to be limited to melee weapons (as some other abilities are), so am I missing some legal/mechanical reason why I couldn't go down this route?

Yeah... umm... well,

Our local supermarket was selling off boxes of twelve little fluffy toy Easter chicks for 25p each so I bought a box.

I'd love to use them in Pathfinder somehow. My character is an okami (wolfen kitsune) barbarian/druid/nature warden.

Any suggestions for crowbarring a dozen chickens into the game? Some spell or side-effect? Maybe something on the Animal Handling route?

You may have guessed that it really shouldn't be too serious and I'm not really looking for mechanical benefits, possibly quite the opposite. Luckily my group has a loose enough sense of humour to appreciate an occasional small chicken invasion.

Paizo have deemed the animation of lifeless bones into animated skeletons as Evil, and PFO will automatically count the offending magic-user as Heinous.

So, how about an alternative approach?

Take one skeleton (lifeless bones). Cast Animate Object to make it a non-Evil animated skeleton.

Or... Craft Construct using bones as the base components to make a bone golem. Voila! One skeletal servant/mount/guard that isn't Evil.

It is this sort of inconsistency that often confuses me. Whether the skeleton is animated by Animate Object or Animate Dead, it is effectively the same result - a skeleton that moves. You can point to different spell level requirements and so on, but if animating a skeleton is Evil, why isn't... animating a skeleton?

The subject of Prestige Classes has been raised before but has not, as far as I am aware, really had an official answer.

Obviously, without a PnP-style class system, the term 'Prestige Class' is a little redundant, but the abilities and powers available to many Prestige Classes are useful to broader character concepts.

As an example, I want something along the lines of the Shadowdancer's ability to Hide in Plain Sight, the ability to fade from notice (very Granny Weatherwax for Pratchett fans). I dare say other such abilities appeal to other players for their own concepts.

I assume that any Prestige Classes and their abilities would be post-EE, and possibly post-OE (the basics are more important), but do GW have plans to introduce Prestige Class-style abilities to the game? I would even be prepared to pay to unlock such advanced powers, and I dare say plenty of others would as well. Prestige Classes make an interesting twist to character concepts but are not required to build a powerful PC, thus making them an attractive luxury rather than a basic element of the game.

One character concept I have in mind is a Dhampir Rogue/Oracle (Dark Tapestry)/Shadow Dancer. There will probably have to be a level or two of Monk in there as well to get the unarmed combat Feats I'm looking for. I intend to use the bite attack and play up the vampiric heritage somewhat.

Now, I will be taking Improved Grapple and intend to grab surprised opponents from the shadows, pin them and then bite them.

The big question is: Can I bite as a Sneak Attack?

The opponent is denied his DEX to AC when pinned, which is one of the provisos that Sneak Attack requires. On the other hand, it is specifically stated that a Rogue may Sneak Attack a helpless opponent but the same is not stated for pinned opponents. Is this simply that it did not require stating, or is it because the Sneak Attack is not intended to work against pinned opponents? After all, most pins require your weapon arms to be fully engaged (yes, I am aware of Judo leg pins).

Although having a bite Sneak Attack in this circumstance seems a little odd, to get to that position the Dhampir Rogue has had to use a Combat Manoeuvre to grapple and pin.

It will make the bite extremely effective (and very messy...), if only in limited circumstances.

LOTRO gives you the chance to play as 'monster' races once you've raised a standard character to a minimum level requirement. This allows meaningful warfare between the monster races and 'good' races and leads to a much more diverse and involved campaign.

I wonder how many players would jump at the chance to play a monster in PFO? It would probably have to be intelligent, could be priced in Real Money according to starting CR, and would obviously need a built-in reaction mod for NPC encounters (I can't see the local guards waving through an Ogre just because he has a neutral Reputation). Maybe a 'Monster' Flag would do it?

The gaming possibilities are rich - are you a fiend who preys on travellers? Are you struggling against your heritage and want to become accepted? Are you at war with the other monsters in your area and those pesky humans keep complicating the power balance?

Social monsters might even have their own organisations, although some sort of racial restriction would be needed to prevent a 'Supervillain' organisation.

Personally, I'd happily pay to play a Hag or similar as an alt. It would be one of the few situations where I wouldn't really care about PvPers always trying to beat the snot out of me.

I wanted to build a Pathfinder character based on a GURPS one I played a few years ago. She was a Celtic trainee druid that had lost her powers thanks to Roman patrol (...) and had become a psychotic Roman-hating warrior.

Tricky to pull off in Pathfinder but it did give me the opportunity to do some tweaks and changes. For a start, that particular GURPS campaign didn't use 'proper' magic (I had Ventriloquism, Mimicry and so on), and I also wanted her to be accompanied by a wolf. This progressed to her being from a tribe of wolf-worshippers and so the idea of a Druid (Wolf Shaman Archetype) with wolf companion was an obvious one. The shapeshifting was a definite flavour bonus, especially with the Shaping Focus Feat to improve relative druid levels.

I really wanted her to be able to fight, though, and Druids, whilst not exactly helpless, don't have the same Celtic-warrior feel to them. Multi-classing was the answer, but Fighter was far too metallic for a Celtic warrior. Barbarian seemed a good match but I wanted my wolf to progress smoothly and not become a liability at later levels, so I thought of Ranger (thus combining Animal Companion levels).

This seemed okay, if not exactly the fit I would have built in a less power-restrictive system. Then I discovered the Mad Dog Barbarian Archetype and suddenly it all fitted into place. At the cost of a slightly reduced Rage ability, I have a shapeshifting Druid who is also a scary sword-and-board warrior and is followed by a wolf.

I'll buy Extra Rage, Wild Speech, Natural Spell and some Feats to boost the shapeshifted wolf form and companion, but does anyone have any other suggestions or comments?

Having debated off on a tangent on another thread, I thought it best to carry the discussion over to a dedicated one.

We were discussing Reputation. I was concerned that we haven't really had a lot of information about what actions or behaviours would affect it. In particular, I am concerned that there will be software-driven factors as with the 'Heinous' tag, where there is no chance to argue about mitigating circumstances.

As far as I know, all we have at present is that Reputation will be mainly a social construct, voted for by other players. A similarity to the eBay system was mentioned. I have heard the phrase 'bad play' brought up to describe what should attract a bad reputation.

In an ideal world, where all players (players not characters) shared the same understanding of what constituted 'bad play' and conscientiously voted good or bad for every PC they dealt with, this might work. However, what is to stop a player being voted as a 'bad player' because he used a trick that the voter didn't approve of (blade venom where the player doesn't like poisons, magic which looks like cheating to the victim, and so on).

I know that the occasional rogue (not Rogue) vote will be subsumed in the mass of votes you get over time, but that assumes others will be bothered to vote positively for your routine and uneventful play. Unless you stand out or starting touting for votes, the chances are that nobody will vote for you at all - having better things to do than go around looking for PCs to vote for.

There is also the tricky problem of alignment. We may happily vote positively for the LG healer who has just stopped to save our lives, but what about the CE vulture who lives by preying on wounded characters in the wilderness? That sounds like a big win for LG in reputation terms, but has nothing to do with 'fair' or 'unfair' play.

I'd like a list of guidelines from PFO if possible, but I realise they have other things to do at present (or should have!).

In the absence of Words From On High, what do the rest of you think?

This is something that I have been musing over for some time, and I know that a couple of other folk here are interested in their use.

In a MMORPG, and PFO in particular, of course, how are poisons going to work? Blade venoms are obviously easier to model - you simply add an effect to the damage caused by the weapon, and magical poison effects will be similarly easy to cater for.

What about ingested poisons though? The staple of poisoners throughout the centuries and the very epitome of the vengeful witch. How are you going to model administering poison to a cup of ale, a tun of wine or even a village well?

Maybe a Sleight of Hand will be required to administer poison to a character's drink. That would make a great deal of sense. But does that character have to have actually bought a drink in-game? I know it is often fun to have an MMO character buy and consume booze, but given the number of characters an MMO tavern attracts, the number of drinks sold must be practically nil!

So maybe you can administer a poison (using Sleight of Hand) to any character in a tavern? You would need to get close, possibly interact in some way (such as talking to them). Would it operate, therefore, in a similar fashion to Pickpocket but require that the target and poisoner character be together in the tavern?

Then you have the option of mass poisoning. Tampering with the tavern supplies while they are still in storage or hitting the well. The well would be easy to poison (unless guarded night and day) but the tavern supply would require some breaking and entering.

I would suggest that the larger the target group, the smaller the effect. This is mainly for game balance, but it could be justified by the additional dilution when poisoning a large quantity of liquid. It is unlikely that the poisoner will be carrying a barrel of poison to the tavern storehouse.

What effect would poisons have? There is no point in poisoning someone if the effect is battlefield temporary. Combat blade venoms are great for stunning or slowing an opponent for a few rounds, but that is not the object of poisoning. Death is extreme, and would certainly be an option for high level poisons, but I would hope it be kept to rare occasions. More likely would be the loss of statistics, as Pathfinder PnP models. These would have to be a long-term loss (unless cured), however, for the poisoner to feel it was worthwhile. There is no point in poisoning someone in a tavern if the poison effect only lasts ten minutes.

Just a few thoughts here. What do the rest of you think?