Marak the alluring's page

I recently joined a campaign and I rolled a LE wizard that can inscribe magical tattoos instead of making wondrous items.
The other characters of the party are not yet aware of his alignment, and he has no reason to be mean to them.

Seeing him creating a magical tattoo, other members of the party have asked if they can get one too. Provided the right compensation my character is willing to do it, and maybe he can get a hidden advantage in the process.

My idea is to put a curse on the tattoo as a back up plan.
Let's say the big fighter wants a tattoo to fight better, as long as he hits my character enemies that is good, but what happens when he finds out my character is not a good person and tries to attack him? I don't want that tattoo to help him in the beating, maybe some kind of effect can be put on the tattoo, that can activate when needed like "-4 Will save", or that work just when my character is targeted.

I need some ideas of what can be done and how much would such added effect cost.
Any reference is well accepted, but the GM is quite new to the game and uses only Core and APG, so, although a good RP idea, I don't want to stretch the rules to much.

I'm having a beef with my GM regarding various uses of diplomacy, and charisma based skill in general, because he thinks that they will unbalance the game.
In this topic I posted an example of such a strong use of Diplomacy.
Long story short: in a week of daily encounters a character (level 9) can sweet talk a wizard into selling a 2k gp worth item for the cost of the raw materials.

Opinions on whether this would be legit vary, but what is unanimous is:"At my table, I won't allow it."

Is that really that strong it should not be discouraged but straight forbidden?
I gave it a thought from a different angle.

Angle 1
Could a Rouge (level 9), specialized in burglary, break into a wizard (level 5) shop and steal what he wishes?
I haven't run the numbers but if I were a 5th level PC wizard, and the master threw at me a ninth level rouge sent by some bad guy to steal my belongings, I reckon my chances look pretty dim. By analogy, in a night work, the rouge PC can have a 100% discount on everything he manages to throw in his bag of holding.

Angle 2
What about a wizard: can he, through charms, illusions, suggestions, do the same?
There are probably a dozen ways.

So, with some preparation and the right tools, or the cover of the night you can, in a few hours, get 100% discount on everything, against the 50% on a single item, and a week dedication using diplomacy.
Still diplomacy is seen as too strong.

Angle 3
Would it be possible, in real life, to do something similar?
Most of the famous and rich people are charismatic types that get things the way they want, and they don't hat the +20 Diplomacy some PCs can muster.
And what about conmen? Have you ever heard of Frank Abagnale, Charles Ponzi, Joseph Weil, Victor Lustig? Just to name a few. They were artists, they didn't just made a living with other people money, but a great one too.
People who can sell 200 stores skyscrapers that they don't own, real estate that don't exist. Without magic, in full daylight. Damn, there is who sold the Eiffel Tower! Twice!

Playing a conman would be so interesting and can add new interesting aspects to the game.
And how would a hustle work? Well, I would say that, over a certain amount of time, the character must succeed in a series of diplomacy and bluff checks. Wait! That is just the procedure proposed in the post linked above, and if you are saying: "mmm, not convinced" instead of "no way!" is because I just presented it in a different way. Presentation might not be everything, but is a lot. : )

So, if it is not as powerful, and impossible, why the hostility?

I see two reasons for this.
First one is that charisma and diplomacy work in a way we don't perceive directly. We are not aware of how much they influence our lives, so we deem such exploit as unreasonable. For example, there are people that are able to influence others to do what they want, and they get even thanked for it. Or, we always think how much money is the big, tough football player making for his skills and sweat, and we don't realize that the men managing the advertising in the stadium is doing tenfold the money just with phone calls from his comfortable couch.
Is funny how magic works with the clockwork precision of math, and the scientific proved power of nonverbal language, influence and charisma can't be expressed in a couple of tables : )

The second reason I see is a "laziness" problem. All in all, the game is about math. A +1 BAB bonus get nullified by a consequent +1 AC from the opponent. No matter how much damage the barbarian can deal, the combat can always be interesting if the GM puts the monster on steroids.
For angle 1 and 2 above, a GM just needs to place better traps or alarm systems to discourage the procedure. But with diplomacy he can't, the DCs are fixed, and no matter the level of the victim, a good diplomacy skill will get through. At this point the GM feels powerless, the player is basically saying that he can have what he wants, without failure, no matter what, a few exploits and the game would spiral out of control.
So the first GM's reaction is "NO!" After all he has godlike powers, and he can do that, but that in storytelling and game design would be accounted as laziness.
Forceful imposed bar is not his only option. The alternatives are not straightforward as adding a +1 BAB, and would require some thinking, but could open new plot hooks and stories never investigated. A character (and a player) should learn that abusing his power can lead to heavy consequences. What if the wizard you robbed goes bankrupt and has to turn to the dark side to survive? And starts helping a bad guy to kill people? Is not just the old story about stopping a bad guy, the character is morally responsible for each of the death caused.
Hustle and Leverage are just two example that show that there is enough material on the subject to tell more than just a few stories.

I know the post will probably stir already debated topics, and I'm sure lot of people will say that I'm just trying to power-play a character. I just hope to hear a few siding with me, a couple of GMs that will say they get excited, not bothered, if a character/player finds new exploit that subvert the game, and challenge the GM for once, instead of him always challenging them.

I was discussing with my GM about my character, the Leadership feat and the Downtime system when I realized this loophole that it makes somewhat sense but seems very powerful.

My character is heavily Diplomacy based and at 9th level has a flat +20 bonus.

This means that at any given time he can walk in a magic shop and start talking with the wizard in charge. A little chit-chat and the wizard goes from indifferent to (at least) friendly (unless the wiz has +6 charisma is an automatic success), for 1d4 hours.

Nothing strange, my character can sweet talk everybody.

Then my character asks for a very personal favor, you know, he really needs it, and only someone with the wizard's knowledge can help him. So he sweet talks again the wizard to do him a "lengthy and complicated task". The friendly wizard, even with the +5 for the task has no way to refuse such favor to such likable person.

My character has brought materials to craft a magic weapon, leaves them in the hand of the wizard and leaves. The wizard will work on the item until he reverts to indifferent and then stop and go his usual business.

The next day my character passes by the wizard's shop. He greets the old friend and the wizard is back to friendly. Casually he will ask if, by any chance, the wizard had had any time to look into his little favor. If it is not finished is not a problem, the wizard is surely a busy man, but, if he would be just so kind to spare a little time ...

And the story goes on, a +1 swords takes from 2 to 8 days, half price and a little chit chat on your way to work every morning.
It takes time I know, and the character must stay in a big city for a while, but, during downtime, or even in a campaign like "Council of Thieves" this could be a pretty strong option.

At fifth level a wizard can take the "Craft Magic Arms and Armor" feat.
Rules states that he can add only bonuses three time lower than his level, so in this case +1.
This means that he can only add +1 bonus and abilities that are worth a +1.
If he is adding a +1 bonus and a +1 ability they are counted separately, so is not a +2 sword.

What happens with a weapon with a +1 bonus and a +1 ability, can the 5th level wizard add another +1 ability, or the abilities bonus stack as the bonuses do?

In our campaign the party has acquired a considerable fame throughout the city as well as a little establishment as base of operations.
A couple of sessions back, while we were otherwise engaged, the house was trashed by some foes and a young squire was abducted. We easily dealt with that, but the safety issue remains: bad people can take advantage of our public identity. That's cool, I even prefer dealing with "logistic" problems than dungeon crawling, but I wasn't sure how to address the problem using the rules.

Certainly the caster can set a handful of traps and alarm systems to discourage the ill-disposed, but, since the caster is an unreliable chaotic halfling, my pragmatic, magic intolerant cavalier was looking for a more mundane option.

As a joke I took the core rulebook, found the page where the "dog, guard" entry is and asked the DM:"for +300gp can I have it masterwork?"

Jokes aside I really like the idea of having a guard dog much more than just having a trap: the trap sits there, a dog, you can pet, toss a bone (or even an annoying halfling), but a simple guard dog is not going to do anything. The party is nearly at level 9, any minion our opponents are going to send is going to be around level 10/12, the dog would probably not even notice them sneaking around and, even if it does, he is going to be sausages before rolling initiative.

There must be somewhere in Westcrown somebody who sells 5th level Rottweilers. I don't want an animal companion, a horse and a cohort are enough to drag around already, just a drooling, growling trespassing deterrent for the house. The question is:"How much would that cost?"
There are different ways I tried to answer this: calculate the cost of a trap with similar effect, calculate the cost of training such animal as a professional, or try to make a guess starting from the 25gp of a mundane dog.
If a wizard sets a self-resetting trap, summoning a dire-wolf when a stranger comes it would cost 16k gp, maybe too much, but we have to think that the trap would also have the surprise effect in it, a guard dog would advertise its presence way before the trespasser is in the property.
Training a guarding dog takes 4 weeks, wit a DC20, so an artisan with +10 in handle animal can easily take 10 and do it with no problems. If we treat the HA skill like a craft in this case it would be a 40 gp worth job. We could multiply the artisan level (somewhere around 8 I would say) and the animal level square, leading to a total of 8k, like a +2 sword or a +3 armor.
While the first esteem seems a little too much, this second seems more likely. Any thoughts on this?

Since a few days ago I am not able to post in the gameplay tread of a campaign i'm playing in.
(http://paizo.com/campaigns/DMBloodgarglersKingmaker/gameplay&page=last )

When I hit on the "submit post" button it behaves like I hit the "preview" one, this doesn't happen in other treads.
I tried different browser with no result.