MartialPlayer603's page

For feats I essentially took Treatmonk's recommendation for general feats, and took Improved Initiative and Toughness. For successive levels I was thinking of looking at magic based feats such as Extend Spell and Quicken Spell, Augment Summoning and Combat Casting.

Maybe this:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NyTzIGaTINNEMC-rpfyw9pDTuEtxKFiUxka 7STeUZt4/htmlview#

But more importantly, what do you actually want to do during combat? Nuke, summon, buff, debuff, etc? For wizards, a lot of the stronger feats/traits push you toward specializing in just a few (one) spells, and that’s going to determine what to look for. And were you indicating that you are building a core Wizard? Or were you just starting with the core rule book.

Say's the URL does not exist when I copy/paste it.

As for what I'd like to do in combat, I'm leaning towards a combination of battlefield control/buffing party members while leaving a spell slot or two open for actual damage dealing attacks.

And I was just starting with the core rulebook, since none of the archetypes really interested me and so I wouldn't be immediately overwhelmed by the spell selection available. Been looking at other materials outside the CR, but been trying to avoid overstretching into looking into every available material source.

Welp, after many years of playing more martial/partial casters that fight martially, I've finally decided to take the plunge and attempt building a full caster for the first time, and naturally I decided to take a whack at the wizard class.

I delved through Treatmonk's guide and the Core Rulebook to get an idea of what to build, and while I have the basic's down, I still feel like I'm not doing enough to optimize my spells, though granted at level 2 I don't exactly have alot of options. That and frankly the lists of wizard spells I can use is well...overwhelming, to say the least, and unfortunately about 3/4 of them are either poor spells to use or are too circumstantial.

Anyways, to get to the meat of the matter, are their better options for spells or is there some sort of document that essentially cuts the "less than ideal spells" and gives a list of the most popular/chosen spells?

Below is the spells I already have set up on the character.

Currently the specialty school is Conjuration, with opposing schools as Divination and Enchantment.

Cantrips: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Ghost Sound, Light, Message, Open/Close, Read Magic

Lvl 1: Color Spray, Endure Elements, Feather Fall, Grease, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil, Silent Image, Snapdragon Fireworks

Aside from the fireworks, which is essentially thrown in as a spell to help towards social interactions, the rest are focused towards being utilitarian, either to help out of combat or assist in either providing some battlefield control or buff/debuffs.

Well, to clarify, I already have a slayer PC that I am currently playing in a campaign, and was looking for more information for ways to build him up as I level up. since additional options for feats, talents, archetypes and such are in newer materials that haven't gotten a thorough inclusion on the web. Currently at level 5 as a slayer with some NPC levels adding him up to level 8 (GM wanted to have a slow leveling system where we started with 3 Class levels and 5 NPC levels, and swapped from replacing an NPC level with a class level and adding a class level as normal) and planning ahead to see what avenues I can take up through level 12.

So far all I've seen is that my current archetype of sniper is fairly underwhelming but currently the most logical choice for setting up a slayer that is primarily an archer first, and a melee fighter second. Still, can't argue with firing off 3 arrows a round and getting sneak attack damage at range.

I'm assuming its mostly because its a newer class, but their doesn't seem to be many places to find on how to build a good slayer.

Been through the d20PFSRD, Pathfinder Reference Document, and a blog called RPG BOT providing some methods and references to help build a good Slayer, but haven't found much else.

Anyone else find good places to look up such information?

The former Lady-J. I wanted to make a character that would be viewed with distrust from common folk from the get go as a plot device.

*Bump*

I'm mostly just throwing this out here because I've read up alot of good information for what I want to make if I went with a ranger build, but due to wanting to try a more combat/skill heavy class, I kinda want to pull things off with a Slayer, specifically a sniper archetype.

Essentially I just want to make a sneaky, perceptive archer that's able to pick off targets at range while being able to assist my party with my skills outside of combat or possibly looking at teamwork feats or contributing damage at range.

Gnoll is mostly there for flavor, since I wanted to pick an uncommonly used race that would arouse suspicion or a sense of distrust from most of whatever realm he ends up in.

If it helps, I doubt this character is going to see any action beyond level 9 (since all the characters I've played in every Pathfinder campaign I've participated in has never hit the double digit level mark).

Level 1 Ability Scores right now are sitting at
Str: 14
Dex: 17
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 14
Cha: 7

While it's not the greatest idea and should be done with an assistant GM, a party split is another way to drag fights out. If you have a 4 person party, split them down the middle and have them fight their way through the BBEG's lackeys until they can regroup right before the boss fight, they'll presumably have taken more damage, have had less time to heal up and it will cause a boss monster that would go down in two or three rounds to take a lot more time.

I wouldn't do it every time, but that's one way to do it. Another way to do it that was done by a GM was have the party be forced to take two paths, one that leads to the boss who apparently is prepared to fight you and the other path is to chase down the less powerful lieutenant or second the boss has who has been sent to gather reinforcements.Then one party has to fight their way to the boss and later delay the boss monster long enough for the other half of the party to finish the lieutenant and run back to finish the job. Then again I think the only reason that worked well enough was that it was a five person party and the inquisitor and samurai went to tackle the second while the cleric, wizard, and fighter kept the succubus from escaping until after the rest of the party came in.

I think it would be brought up as a method of last resort, preferably after all others options have been exhausted and the boy proves to be an immediate threat to the party.

The cleric deal was mostly due to a combination of a newish GM running a combat heavy adventure path who literally decided to let us slide because he knew most of the dungeons had evil monsters, so it was a snowball effect from the get go.

And I simply mentioned LG because it gave the DM an easy way to set up audiences rather than having the party sneaking around all the time.

Well I do a bit of talking with my times as a paladin as well, however, it gets...difficult to play a diplomacy type paladin when the party cleric of Sarenrae (past party) decides to best way to convert people is set them on fire...

Anyway's, to get back on topic, I should get myself a buckler just for the extra +1.

Wow talk about opening a big can of worms.

Well, from what I am gathering here, to differentiate from a warpriest I shouldn't necessarily hold myself to a code as thorough as a paladin's, and would be able to reason my way out of minor infringements of my code provided they don't blatantly violate what my goddesses goals are.

My warpriest honestly doesn't place fighting first, since the most he has done is be a party face (LG goes a long way to holding audiences with people in legitimate positions of power) and healing on the cheap for the party, though I guess other than the barbarian I can rack up damage fast on anyone that pings on my radar as evil in aura.

And he actually isn't a sword a board, more like a sword in one hand and holy symbol in the other. But I can definitely understand the arguments over alignment, since now I'm starting to wonder if my character is more LG or NG at this point, or just switches between the two given the situation.

This is actually a conversation you should be having with your GM. While you're not a paladin, strict alignment questions are always interrupted differently by different people.

Since this is a homebrew campaign and it sounds like you want to bring in a deeply faithful and law abiding Warpriest. I suggest you write up a code of ethics and check them with your GM.
Anything that might cause you to come in conflict with that code can be used as a plot device for a soul searching experience.

Question -
What is everyone else playing and what kind of style do they plan on playing with? Something you need to check as from what I'm reading here, there's a lot of parties this character would not group up with once he got to know them.
This has happened to me a couple of times when I wanted to play some divine characters and had other party characters that wanted to do stuff that was against the religious tenets my character followed.

To answer your question, here is the general rundown of the rest of the party:

Kobold Sorceror-TN, his motivation is to reach demi-god status by becoming as powerful a caster as he can, and to achieve a goal of becoming a dragon himself (in his case a blue dragon due to their intelligence and trickster ways). Doesn't like I am the religious sort but tolerates it due to me healing him on past occasions and and smooth-talking my way into letting guards enter towns with little challenge (since kobolds are treated as monsters and are viewed as subhuman compared to half-elves/elves). Main reason I work alongside him is I am sympathetic to peoples views on him since its similar to how my race is treated and I try and temper his selfish ways towards goals that while not necessarily lawful are meant to be a way for him to do the morally right thing.

Dwarf Skald- CG, motivation is to make a story of adventure that would be heard for generations to come; and brain a few heads in along the way for a greater good or whatnot (his words, not mine)

Dwarf Barbarian- CG so far, mostly just wants to assist his brother since whereever his brother goes, fighting usually follows, and he lives for a fight

Dwarf Cavalier- LG, Order of the Dragon (last I recall), wants to do the right thing and maintain order in a kingdom he believes is wracked with doubts and fears.

The barbarian and cavalier just joined last session so I'll give an update once I get a better feel for what the players intend to do with the characters.

To answer your question, he see's law as a way to maintain structure and order, as well as provide a manner to fairly (in his eyes) punish those who commit an evil act, since he has not seen a government abuse their power as of yet.

He also does this as a way to uphold the respect he has for the paladin's he had worked under growing up, seeing their philosophy as a worthy one to follow in spirit, if not in code. While he places good above the law, he has not seen a case whether they both cannot work in tandem with each other.

Well, that's certainly an eye opener, since I was not aware that that sort of interpretation was about. I was aware of the idea's of "Lawful Good, not Lawful Nice" and that some paladins look forward to falling from grace not because it was a bad thing but because something was evil enough to make them believe the rewards of stopping evil outweighed the consequences, but that definitely changes what I'm going to be looking at in regards to how my character interacts with the people about him.

So I know it's a rather stupid question to ask, since I'm sure a thread is out there to cover it, but I'm playing a half-elf Warpriest (vanilla, no archetype) in a homebrew campaign. He is Lawful Good, follows the goddess Iomedae, and does so because he was adopted by a church of mostly humans, even when in this homebrew world half-elves are viewed with suspicion because elves are no longer seen in regular society and are viewed as weird bastard children that cannot be trusted unless they prove themselves to the local people.

He grows up in the church and views the paladins that guard his city as role models to look up to, though he also acknowledges once he grows up and becomes a traveling messenger for his church and goddess that he can do things that the codes of a paladin would frown upon, if not his goddess, such as making small lies in order to find the truth of some greater good (example right now that he's lying to a merchant in that he claims he is looking for a slave in an underground slave market to purchase for his church as free labor when his greater goal is to find the slave ring, find a girl that had been kidnapped earlier and rescue her before calling in a sting operation for the city guard).

I'm trying to find ways to make him differentiate himself enough from a paladin to not fall under the banner of a LG Paladin, but still uphold that he is following what is considered the goddess of Paladin's. Either that or I just need help finding a way to play Lawful Good without turning into Lawful Nice/Lawful Goody Two-Shoes.

Any suggestions or advice to help with this?

Bwang wrote:

Does anyone have a thought or four on Paladin Codes? One size does not fit all anywhere else, and friends run differing codes that better fit the deities of their games, including some LE types.

Lawful good, losing class features for evil acts, and punish those who harm or threaten innocents, etc. are stock, but do you add or subtract?

A friend has assigned an Archetype to each paladin using deity and is hammering 'better' Codes that are closer to the deity in question. The only one I've seen was a justice oriented Code that emphasized LAW over good. The Paladins are LN for the most part, seriously Law focused with a 'mercy' list bereft of the Good ones, Lawful ones being added. While the Order is not 'good, there are no Benefits for Evil types. Another player called the Code 'Lawful good Hardass' and it fits.

A Paladin is defined by being Lawful and Good. Codes should always start with these two base assumptions.

I can understand that, though exceptions should be looked into. I came from 5E D&D when I came back to Pathfinder and talked to my GM about building a paladin that was more LN than LG and he was on board with it provided I start building a code and prove that he is human and flawed and is not completely evil or heartless.

Reading this thread makes my soul hurt. Roleplaying seems to be a lost and unwanted art.

To the two group players in the discussed group, if you can't get into combat before it ends all the problems you're having are due to your GM not adjusting the CR of your encounters appropriately.

Believe me, myself and another player lament over the loss of roleplaying since we have two people who only crunch numbers and their extent of roleplaying is counting money and praising their ridiculous diplomacy and intimidation rolls.

Anywho, hopefully with the group coming together to hash out the issues we can improve on avoiding this situation again.

zanbato13 wrote:

If I recall, the two main destroyers are melee combatants. I would bring up to the GM to create encounters playing against their weaknesses and turning their strategies against them. Create multiple threats in an encounter from multiple sides so that they can't cover everything. Make situations they aren't designed to handle. If they rush, make traps they could never have seen. You could create enemies that mimic them and play then at their own game.

the DM has crit/precision/flanking immune monsters coming up. I'm looking forward to it, and I've already started preparing for it. (Free Weapon Finesse + Light Mace = i can do something other than piercing damage!)

Other nice thing to throw in on top of the improved group cohesion is the GM finally decides to let me know after five months of holding onto the darn thing that the longsword I got three sessions into the game is not just another cold iron longsword, but is a +2 weapon as well (chucks out the other five weapons I've been toting around because the best I could get my hands on were +1 weapons all the time). Combined with actually having redone my warblade levels to improve my choices of maneuvers, I'm contributing pretty well, so I guess the problem is mostly solved provided we dont end up with another group split again.

Also like I said before, I'm not planning on killing the two players, at least not intentionally, its me just having a plan to make sure that if the two players go on a power trip or start threatening to kill other players that I at least have a plan that wont immediately be a suicide charge.

Thats for the change in topic I guess, and yeah I think the GM is making a change in that he's having everyone rebuild their characters, and if people want to keep characters the way they are they can keep it, but I'm taking his advice and changing my character up, and I'll most likely take a few levels in Phoenix Mage since they looks like a good way to get some spells into my character without sacrificing too much damage, and since we've gotten to higher levels I'm thinking that AC matters and lot less and focus more on damage and saves while using the gold I have to see about getting an item with miss chance.

We actually do use point-buy, and used the 20 point system for this campaign

We're all relatively young since the players are all in college. And the rule for our GM is he allows LE and NE, but not CE, since he see's it as too often an excuse to do random evil things for the heck of it.

And to be honest its not entirely a players working against entire party deal, in detail its more of three players want to have the campaign go one way, two other players want to keep following the campaign plot points, though one tends to sidetrack a bit, and the only reason I think of ways to deal with the two players is because working together they virtually wipe the floor in combat and since they are in a position of power in that they can strongarm the group to do what they want through either money, transportation (they own and control the ship, including the crew), or outright combat, for me its simply a contingency plan so that if the two players decide to go too far, the rest of the party has a chance to rein them in before they cause too much damage.

MartialPlayer603 wrote:

Combined with their use of teamwork feats, one of them is able to constantly roll crits (though damage is relatively low at 15-20 damage per attack), while the other one is a straight up high damage dealer, usually putting out 20-35 damage per attack, with AC above 25 (27 on the swashbuckler, 35 on the monk) and attack bonus of at least +21 on their first attacks.

None of those things is very impressive on a level 11 character.

My martials have an 27 AC by level 5-7 - and 35 @ 11 is decent - but nothing to write home about, especially for a monk. The monk could easily be into the 40's if he tried hard.

+21 on attacks @ 11 is similarly decent, but unimpressive. +9 BAB (for monk - includes -2 from flurry), +7 stat (not impressive), +1 Weapon Focus, +3 weapon (min - should have higher), +1 small size. It's not very hard to do - far easier for the Swash who gets Weapon Training, Greater Weapon Focus, and +11 BAB.

Basically - it sounds like you have 2 decent characters (monk probably the better of the 2) in a group a badly built ones - and with a homebrew somewhat OP race. (50ft base is far too much)

I'd just ask the GM to allow you to rebuild, and ask those 2 players for tips to be at their level. (Or go grab any of a dozen guides to be considerably better if you'd prefer.) Possibly the GM should allow the other 2 players to rebuild as well.

I'm kinda surprised a +7 stat is not impressive, seeing as we consider normal a +4 on at least two scores considered the normal for our level, and it may be the DM's fault, maybe the players fault, maybe a mix of both, but because of the amount of funds we get only one of us has a +3 weapon at this point, with most of us having an array of +2 weapons.

Though I'm gonna take a look at the rebuild idea, since I have a feeling I need to change out all my feats and adjust my warblade maneuvers in order to build a better character.

I do sincerely apologize for the TL;DR chunk, but it seemed that some people were, in a logical manner, misinterpreting my poorly written first post on the matter.

And in a way we've separated into two groups, usually with the split being between the two teams, with the only major issue being that the GM has trouble juggling the two groups and keeping them both equally engaged, which is reasonable since theres not much for the other group to do when they decide to take drastically different paths of doing things with differing results (Case in point, Couch is out gathering intel for example, and either they get it and get a bunch of money on the side, or they get it and leave a trail of bodies behind them, whereas Barstool goes for intel that is entirely different or covers a different angle and usually is either they get away unseen or the warblade has to wade into a fight and drag the assassin out from a prickly situation). Usually it only lasts half a session and they get together as a group again.

Another question that could work better is if their is any good way to deal with the fact that the players have two subgroups desiring entirely different things out of the campaign in terms of what they enjoy?

Whoa, I leave the forums for two months and I read all this and realize I phrased this whole thing in a manner that came out entirely different from what I wanted to asked.

(*Deep breath/face palm at my own inability to phrase my question for advice*)

Okay, some clarifications. Note: I sincerely apologize for the TL;DR that will follow.

First, this isn't an outright "kill two party members" plan, its a contingency plan for if the two players decide to turn against the party in the name of money because if such a thing were to occur the rest of the group is kinda screwed. I have discussed this with the two players and they say they're fine with it because due to the powder-keg of a party we have it makes perfect for them to take that course of action if the party becomes too divisive.

Another thing is due to the campaign magic is limited, with divine magic being completely gone (and is the focus for the campaign since the party is trying to find out why and fix this issue), and arcane magic is limited (meaning most magic we deal with is against boss enemies)

A correction I should've made is the party is composed of this: (now level 13)

Weapon Adept Monk that has such high AC/saves that so far the GM has nothing in any encounters that has broken it yet (on the flip side, he has the second smallest health pool of the party), who's goal is literally engineering checks and works on helping their (in-game) sister continue making crits. I've talked to him and due to a combination of bad choices by (in-game) sister he hasn't been too much help in the past two encounters due to being stuck working on the airship the party uses while the rest of the party is caught in a fight. No longer an issue.

Swashbuckler (aka the sister to the monk) that has good AC/good saves that is focused on being able to constantly hit and do damage to their target with an expanded crit range rapier. Ironically the problem now isn't so much with combat as it is not out of combat. In game the swashbuckler is captain of the ship and honestly I dont know if its the player of the character now that is having a power trip and constantly making in game choices solely on how well they can make alot of money rather than the plot, as well as threatening to boot my character and another character off for not being on board with that train of thought. Also as a side effect because of above situation with the monk every time she takes damage she immediately flee's rather than continuing to fight to help the party (even though she has the third largest health pool in the party, right behind the two tanks)

Rogue who mostly pilots the ship and helps the two above characters steal important documents/items to assist them with their goals and literally is along to have some fun and avoid her (in-game) fiance who wants to marry her and use her just to obtain more wealth. Only major issue I've seen is she doesn't do much damage and is slow compared to the monk and swashbuckler so she usually doesn't even get to make an attack before the encounter is over.

NEW GUY: Weird DMPC character that is best characterized as a fighter that is actually a young adult dragon disguised as a human because apparently he was sealed in the body of a human as a curse from an evil arcane user and the rogue has knowledge of a magic item capable of turning him back. Great tank who is convenient at helping make getaways through making mists and the like.

The above characters are controlled by Team Couch (you'll understand what I mean after I finish covering the other characters)

Warblade/Bard/Templar hybrid. Currently working on improving damage and is evening the playing field by now having contacts across the region to help locate enemies and make things more convenient. He also is the unoffical healer/vanguard due to his spells (focused on CLW/Darkness/Blind) and a bag of holding full of healing potions. Not a major issue once I get caught up to speed on dealing a decent amount of damage reliably. Also apparently useful for having a higher fortitude save over everyone else, meaning when others get crippled by magical effects the dragon guy and myself are still standing.

Monk(Assassin idea turned into a monk) made by a heavy roleplayer that wanted a character that was literally an assassin from the Assassins Creed franchise. Surprisingly decent at attacks (does roughly 30-40 damage if she lands all her attacks and rolls in the middle) but unfortunately runs away from fights or gets in over her head (aka she decided it was smart to jump down on a boss enemy and got knocked out form one full attack from boss and only survived because the GM made the attacks all non lethal), and also has the lowest health pool of the party (Even the GM is worried that 64 HP at level 13 is a bit small)

These two characters compose Team Barstool

Now to explain the teams. Literally three players sit on a couch and have one preference for playing the game, the other tow players sit on barstools and have another preference for playing.

The former enjoy constant combat that shows off their combat abilities and doing things for laughs, mostly trolling or watching tons of enemies get turned into corposes, whereas the latter is more into roleplay and mostly enjoy combat when it advances the plot or achieves an objective.

Teamwork has improved, though its mostly in pairs since now fights seem to be a team-up of the monk/swashbuckler, the rogue/fighter, and the warblade/assassin working together as partners. The first pair enjoy self sufficiency and try to take as many kills as possible, the second pair is usually a case of the rogue running away and the latter covering her escape, and the last pair is usually me healing the fighter and dragging the assassin out before she gets herself killed.

IN SUMMARY/ IF YOU DESIRE TO SKIP THE TL;DR: Its improved, but a better question I should ask is whats the best way to deal with two players that always play high-dex builds that dont seem to want help and convince them they do indeed need the rest of the party rather than thinking of themselves?

In my current campaign there's two min-maxed players in the party, currently at level 11, both with Dexterity based combat builds, ones a swashbuckler and the other is a Weapon Adept Monk, both have focused on a combination of high dexterity, combined with a race that is a modified Strix (mainly they're small creatures now and a base speed of 50 feet, as well as gliding abilities. Combined with their use of teamwork feats, one of them is able to constantly roll crits (though damage is relatively low at 15-20 damage per attack), while the other one is a straight up high damage dealer, usually putting out 20-35 damage per attack, with AC above 25 (27 on the swashbuckler, 35 on the monk) and attack bonus of at least +21 on their first attacks

Suffice to say I decided to be mildly stupid and multiclassed, using a combination of a modified 3.5 Warblade, Arcane Duelist, and currently prestige classing as a Low Templar, with a Warg as a mount. My AC is still lower than either of the other two players, my damage is 15-20 usually per attack, and they can outmaneuver me on top of beat me on skill rolls. My spells cant hold them down usually since their saves are good enough to beat them most of the time, and at this rate the only reason I am not at a disadvantage is alot of smart roleplaying and now being a member of a Templar Order.

It's gotten to the point where the GM is trying to find ways to get me on an even playing field with them because he can easily see them abusing their builds against the party if they decided to, especially because both players are Chaotic Good and my goal is to fall to Lawful Evil before working my way back to Lawful Good, which could be cut short if the two decided I need to be killed. The other party members aren't much help because one is a monk that really just sneaks around stealing stuff and the other is a rogue thats too busy running away from everyone to be of much use.

In short/aka TL, DR; anyone have any suggestions to cut down Dex-based combat characters with good saves (roughly +8-+10 on all three) down to size either with my character or through use of roleplaying? Some suggestions the GM's given is unleash spiders on them in an ambush or use ranged attacks with poison aimed at Strength and Constitution. Anyone got better ideas than that?

Well, he's gonna hate it, but I guess that's gonna be the solution I'll be telling him to use because I just don't want to have the entire session turn into a constant switch off between half the party enjoying themselves while the other half is not enjoying the game and then switching.

I feel kind of stupid now that I didn't just accept the splits as inevitable and as the only sure way to make sure this whole issue doesn't escalate into major conflict.

Well, to sum up an answer to that question, the GM is trying to avoid intra-party conflict because in terms of how conflict is forming in the party it's turning into the exact same composition as the last campaign we did together, right down to the players siding with the exact same others as last campaign (aka the three CN characters forming one group and the non CN characters forming the opposition in this case, with said players of these characters forming the exact same split in the campaign before this). He's trying to avoid this both to make the game easier to get through and he doesn't want to have to feel like he's putting up with the exact same split as before in the last campaign.

In my opinion I think the CN players both enjoy and dislike the conflict at the same time, because on the one hand it fuels the personality of at least one of the characters, but on the other hand the CN group is sort of exasperated by the fact that the non CN characters don't just go along with them, especially the rogue and cohort because they don't understand that she doesn't have much interests in airships, even if they're the central means of transportation in the game, and in their minds they think she agreed to it when she got outvoted by the group along above group lines and the GM tried to appease everyone because the group was originally torn over what campaign to run and had gotten ties over the ideas of "loss of divine magic", "martial only party", and "airships", so the GM decided to mix all three together with mixed results.

The rogue/monk cohort combo most likely have less enjoyment out of everyone due to the combination of not wanting to make many concessions due to wanting to maintain the purpose and flavor of her character, and also because the overwhelming majority of the solutions given by the CN group is to mold her characters to the concept of airships and siding with the less than lawful members of the party (which the monk will definitely have issues with, and the rogue already has issues with the CN swashbuckler).

In my opinion I think the major problems are differences in IC personality types and that the CN group have the same goals and motivations while the non CN group does not have the same goals and motivations as the CN group and thus have no reason to stick around, especially since the CN group doesn't seem interested in the main quest of investigating why divine magic has disappeared from the world. I'll also admit that the non CN group doesn't seem very interested in the loss of divine magic plot right now, but on the other hand they're all trying to investigate sub quests in the cities they travel to in order to do some sort of good for the common populace while the CN group mostly is fending off people coming after the rogue on the run, which so far has resorted with the CN group getting put through multiple combat sessions at the docks while the non CN members are out and about in the city role-playing all the time.

Since I enjoy the meaningful feedback I'm getting from people on this thread, I'm going to post some updates on how the situations going.

So far we haven't devolved into the piracy side of things quite yet, though the two CN piracy-leaning characters now command the merchant vessel they were already crew members on. The CN rogue is in a little bit of a pickle, because her rich fiancé is after her, and ended up paying the TN hylian rogue to investigate and keep tabs on her, complete with 20,000 GP down payment (frigging caused the rest of the party to have our eyes almost pop out of our heads, because even as 7th level characters we considered that to be a huge amount of money). Said rogue on the run also seems to have her family after her, once it came to light her main backstory is that her family is comprised of trained assassins and when she got sent on her first assignment (to kill one the CN monk ironically), she didn't carry it out because she's getting bribed with large sums of money by the two piracy leaning characters.

The major conflict still at this point is integrating the warblade/bard and the hylian rogue with her cohort because they don't really have much motivation to stay with the other three crew members. The rogue refuses to do anything towards contributing to an airship since she doesn't like them at all, combined with character tension over nobody paying any interest in her paranormal investigation specialty and tension between her character and the CN swashbuckler, who's the new captain, which can be characterized as a money gouger and being very confrontational when it comes to social interactions. The bard has a lesser level of tension with said captain, mostly due to money gouging and getting irritated OOC at how OP her character is compared to his own, due to having to listen to how optimized she is with an AC over 28 and with an attack bonus of over thirty on her first attack, which has gotten out of hand enough that the GM has to set up a combat with two types of opponents; ones to take on the combat optimized characters and ones to take on the non combat optimized characters.

I'm hoping to find some way to convince said hylian character to stay with the ship, because she's stated that she'd be willing to not accept the rest of the rich guys reward if the three keep emphasizing their plan on drink booze, sail around, kill foes quickly and efficiently, and make tons of money, but if things keep going the same I'm already planning for the idea that the warblade/bard, hylian rogue and cohort will split from the other three and get on another ship, which will most likely make the GM's job a nightmare.

Well for a status update, I did talk to my GM, and he has accepted the no PvP rule without player permission to stick, so that will help a little, but apparently his insights are aimed at people's play styles. In his opinion, the hard part is dealing with differences in play styles. The CN swashbuckler and monk players like trying out the features of classes and feats and try to wring the most of them through optimization and combat, and enjoy doing things that are completely absurd or off the wall. The bard and rogue/monk combo players play more realistically, trying to roleplay through scenarios with logic and critical thinking, and don't completely optimize their builds because they try and cater to combinations that can lead to unique roleplay opportunities, though the bard is designed to be a jack of all trades and the rogue/monk are meant for skills and roleplay. The CN rogue is a relatively new player that's kind of a middle of the road between these two extremes, but at least on the roleplay side leans more heavily towards the absurd than the realistic.

Overall, the GM said he's going to have trouble to find a compromise to have the two trains of thinking for playing the game co-mingle, especially because the personality of both players and the characters themselves means the swashbuckler and TN rogue are going to be constantly arguing over whether to take the common sense approach or the risky and absurd approach. He also acknowledges that due to the bard being an ex-paladin means that if they take the piracy approach that anything other than trying to become privateers is bound to cause trouble.

I haven't really thought of it like that before. So by taking advantage of my alignment I can have a good chance of bargaining my way into the party, and I can actually give them a legitimate front through being a good and fair leader compared to them, while using the paranormal investigation as another front to provide legitimate business services beside looking like traders to gain access for wealth for the CN characters and professional business for the good characters. Course I sense the idea of digging up graves will cause some issues, but it still sounds better than a major party conflict.

Yeah, I'm most likely going to have to discuss with the GM over how to deal with the problem, and no PvP sounds like a good place to start.

Honestly my issue is that the two that want to be pirates definitely have the greatest potential to walk all over the rest of the party simply because they're more readily built for combat (I mean, they're built for dexterity, have taken teamwork feats AND they can fly naturally, whereas everyone else has at most feather fall rings or spells). Combined with the fact that they're already plotting to oust the captain of the airship and take it over for themselves, I'm hoping that I can find some way to leverage enough advantage to keep myself and the other two good aligned characters from being forced to "walk the plank."

And yeah, that's a good summary of it, because from what I can tell from the players perspective the two players want to be able to go completely off the plot to fulfill their personal side quests, which usually involves pillaging, obtaining wealth or power, and in one case they want to pull off their plan on seducing the admiral of the nations navy.

It's going to be kinda hard to convince two wanna-be pirates and a noblewoman on the run to come to any sort of agreement with a traveling combat bard, a paranormal investigator and a monk that's tagging along just to make sure his investigator friend doesn't get screwed over.

I kind of have a sticky situation right now with the party I'm in right now. My GM is rather open minded and allowed custom races and 3.5 material into the game, and due to how the players set up their characters, its started some conflicts that do not seem to have any immediate solutions.

The situation right now is we have five players and a cohort. Two players are CN custom races that could best be considered small Strix's, one monk and one swashbuckler, set up for high AC and damage, who's motives are to become pirates and have fun messing with everyone, player and NPC alike. We have a half dragon, half human rogue who's also CN and literally is tagging along with the two players above in order to have fun adventuring and stay away from her fiance (a plot hook).

Opposing them are two custom characters based off of Hylians, a rogue with a monk cohort, who are built for role-playing purposes over combat, and a custom dragonborn thats an ex-paladin, now a warblade/bard multiclass, who is sort of the middleman who wants a mix of combat and roleplay. They're true neutral (leans good),lawful good, and lawful good (that now spans the good spectrum) respectively. All three have the similar reasons of traveling around adventuring for the sake of taking in new experiences.

The basic plot synopsis is that somehow all these characters got thrown onto an airship, which is a new pioneering technology across the land, and one day all divine magic is suddenly done, and its the groups job to find out why.

The conflict I'm seeing is the chaotic neutral vs good (and lawful to a degree) arguments that will inevitably ensue and will make it hard for the group to stay together. Does anyone have any advice on how I as a player or as a character could either talk to the GM or to other players/characters to try and find some way to solve this issue without the entire party turning against each other over conflicting interests?

12. Varash Flameclaw, a dragonborn fighter who's lived most of his life as a mercenary. A realist of his race who realized most fights lacked honor, and thus saw no point in allowing it when fighting, he is known for being willing to do whatever is necessary to defeat a foe.

With a well-used and reliable longsword and buckler to complement his fighting style, he is surprisingly fast for a fighter in full-plate armor, capable of moving as if it was barely there for short periods of time (roughly 4-5 rounds in game). He fights like a striker, using his strength and speed to overwhelm individual opponents before breaking away from combat after delivering the final blow, looking to reassess the situation before diving back into the fray. He will admit to having trouble handling multiple opponents at once, and will immediately seek a way to put his back to a wall in order to better compensate for such a weakness.

The crowd also likes to call him the living barbecue, for his most fearsome asset is his flaming breath weapon, unleashing a torrent of flames from his toothy maw in close combat to burn his foes to the ground, though unfortunately its something the crowd only gets to see once a day at best.

Adjusted the proficiency was accordingly for shields. Now I just get to debate whether or not to expand firearms proficiencies to all primitive firearms

I won't go over the entire thing, but here goes.

1) Pirates are cool.

2) I would change proficiencies to "A pirate bravo is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with light armor and shields (except tower shields)."

3) Sea Legs is granting a combined total of +9 to skills. I would give away the feat OR the scaling bonus. If you stick with the scaling bonuses, I would go with "A pirate adds 1/2 her level as a bonus to Profession (sailor) and Swim skill checks (minimum +1)" Its thematically good, and the pirate can still get the feat if he wants.

4) I would remove the cutlass/broadsword restriction from Gun & Sword, completely. You're going for thematics, but is there something about those swords that makes TWF easier than a dagger or a punch? I would let it work with all light and one-handed melee weapons. I think there are a number of weapons that would be just as awesome as a cutlass, such rapier, cutlass, dagger, boarding axe, hook, belaying pin, or even a shield. I wouldn't limit it.

5) Add 1 to the Reflex save. Stick to the regular formula.

6) An animal friend that models after Animal Companion would yield a sturdier animal, I think. Share Spells could still be a function of the animal companion.

I thank you for the advice, and have made some adjustments to it already.

1. Pirates are definitely cool, hence why I went with the PC, which is really just a copy of Hector Barbossa.

2. Kinda adjusted it and said pirates are proficient with the above and the pistol, musket, and blunderbuss, since it kinda makes sense for a pirate to be proficient in the most "common" of firearms.

3. Removed the Sea Legs feat.

4. Readjusted to the regular formula.

5. I get to work on this one as I read up on information on the differences before editing that bit.

Also, on an unrelated note I'm tempted to up the dice on the Low Blow abilities to d8's since the maximum you would get is 4d6 at level 20, which is really just a minuscule amount of damage against whatever a GM could throw at you at that kind of level.

I could just treat the items as loot that I conveniently found and take advantage of. Also I'm having the headband crafted since another PC has Craft Wondrous Items for a skill. I could also argue on the Moves Around Alot detriment due to most of my fights are occurring around a port city and if I do intend on taking the ship out on missions and such it will always return to Korvosa and I can tell him most trips are relatively short.

I may also just hire some hirelings as a filler until I can get my score up to where I want it to be.

And since we're also taking traits, I did take Natural Born Leader which gives me a +1 to my Leadership Score.

*bump*

Right now I'm in a Curse of the Crimson Throne Campaign and am running a pirate player character. Right now he's a combination of the Rogue Pirate Archetype and the Gunslinger Pistolero Archetype, but my big problem with it right now is that it's a skill-monkey first and a combatant second, which is not how I want to run the character.

So after perusing some home brew classes, I came across a Pirate class home brew and made a few modifications to it to better fit the play-style I am looking for.

Any advice on how to refine it, as well as comments to see if its OP or UP?

Frodo with a Gat! "Yo Sauron! Say Hello to my little friend!"

Gandalf with an AK-47; "When you absolutely have to kill every Orc in the room."

Meh. Flavor-wise, it is about as jarring for your Euro-centric fantasy world as kung-fu style monks, and hopefully you aren't adverse to them either. As someone that grew up on both your 'traditional fantasy' and martial arts films where the actors were all on wires, I make little difference between them.

Personally, I like that fantasy doesn't just mean medieval Europe. Pathfinders includes mythology from many different regions and time periods, and I feel it is richer for it. Not everything has to be Tolkien.

And heck, why don't you play a Wild West themed game? You made it sound like it was a bad thing. Why don't you have Custer versus the elf chief Little Big Ears. Have wizards doing ray duels at high noon. Have a paladin sherif trying to cut the Asmodeus Gang off at the pass. The only real change is that you are fighting in deserts/prairies and caves instead of temperate forests and caves, and you use bad western accents rather than bad Ren Faire accents.

I will say though, if the player begins to say anything about 'double pistols' and 'two weapon fighting', then you are more than invited to smack him in the face with the whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The builds made by people that go for those typically have 4 times the usual number of attacks of what the gunslinger was designed for, and require some madness about juggling weapons on a string or growing extra arms with an alchemist multiclass. Don't allow them an inch on the issue when it comes to that.

To be quite frank I would absolutely love to try a Wild West themed Pathfinder campaign. Being a fan of Westerns, I'd already see myself making a Dragonborn (4e Converted of course) Pistoleros with a whole Man With No Name theme going for him and have a blast with that. It's just that for the more old school players I stated that using only primitive firearms would be an effective compromise so that you won't have people complaining about six shooters being used next to a long sword and shield.

Well it depends on what type of firearms they have. In my campaign my GM only allows primitive firearms and no advanced firearms, so while flintlocks and blunderbusses are perfectly fine, he's drawing the line and saying no revolvers or repeating rifles. That to me sounds more in line with D&D and Pathfinder fantasy games so that someone can make a musket wielder or a pirate but they can't go creating a John Wayne cowboy amongst knights and wizards.

I can certainly understand the surprise by it, but as long as the GM doesn't let gunslinger players go crazy over what they're packing I don't see too big a problem with it.

Simply my .02, which I have no doubt will get flamed by Rogue-haters, but so far I am perfectly happy with how my Rogue it working out.

For Curse of the Crimson Throne I took a Rogue Pirate Archetype and for my 5th level I dipped a level into the Gunslinger Pistolero Archetype to help out with ranged attacks.

Quite frankly I'm not the guy who min-maxes stuff for characters, but someone split down the middle in terms of performance and role-play, and so far my guy's been able to surprise my GM in terms of expectations.

With magic items that I've collected so far and with leveling up bonuses he's got a +10 attack bonus on his melee attacks and a +9 attack bonus on ranged attacks at level 5. His AC is at 21, which is higher than everyone in my group except the Cavalier and a dude who min-maxed a home-brew class thats got an AC above 30 already. His HP is 57 (big thank you to Toughness, a feat well worth investing in)which is higher than the casters and ranged players but lower than the tanks, and my damage has ranged between 7-16, and with a crit range of 17-20/x2, I can get damage rolls of 28-32 roughly 20% of the time, and all thats all without 2d6 Sneak Attack damage.

Sure its nothing compared to what a barbarian, fighter, or cavalier could do, but right now I'm doing more damage than a wizard, rogue/gunslinger/sorcerer, gunslinger/alchemist, and a cavalier/inquisitor, while only getting beat out by a home-brew PC thats meant to have ridiculously high AC and attack/damage rolls in exchange for lousy skill ranks and low HP.

Throw in the fact I normally let the two tanks walk in first before acting as a skirmisher, I've been able to contribute to the team quite effectively, and so far am the one guy who bothered with lots of high skill scores so I normally get shoved into doing all the skill roles anyway.

I'll admit he's not being used to maximum effectiveness, and in hindsight the Swashbuckler may have been a better choice, but he gets the job done. And at level 7 I can just piss off the GM by letting him take Leadership and solve half his problems with a pirate ship blasting opponents from a distance.

Like I said, thats my .02. Let the haters blast away once more!

Here's the one thing that completely threw my GM off his possible TPK high-horse due to my PC:

My two cents for it would be to let the two players make whatever they like as long as they can fill a role in the party and just make an NPC or two to fill in the spots that haven't been taken. Sure its a little more weight on the GM, but it's an option. Or another option is have both players make two characters to play.

What's your cohort plan?

That headband is really expensive. I'm sure you'll love it, but that's some investment. Consider making up the difference in your lack of followers with hirelings. Compared to epic items, they're cheap. As you advance, you're score will rise, and those lowly hirelings will be replaced by proper followers.

I'd like to run a pirate ship where the PC is an Awakened parrot sorcerer or bard, his cohort is the captain and crew his followers (the crew has no idea). Anyway, an Awakened Parrot Bard would probably be a fun cohort for your concept. It could fly around and inspire the crew as needed, add to your mystique (e.g., aid diplomacy checks), and provide levity for the group.

Well so far my cohort plan is that the GM is letting me start with a gnoll that's taken 4 levels into Fighter Corsair and 1 level in Rogue Pirate. My goal is to get a tank that can take a lot of hits, pull off pirate style combat skills somewhat easily (focusing mainly on Acrobatics [at 10], Climb [10], Diplomacy [10], Intimidate [12], Perception [8], Stealth [8], and Swim [10] ) and can throw a a decent amount of damage back in melee. The way I was thinking of it would be that I'm the captain playing good cop with diplomacy checks to motivate my crew and the gnoll would be my bad cop enforcer using Intimidate to get the point across if Diplomacy failed. Of course I have considered looking into a more charisma focused cohort that can still do a bit of damage, so a bard is certainly not out of the question.

And while the headband is expensive, right now I'm trying to focus my PC primarily on Dexterity and Charisma, and if I possibly get the chance maybe a mild boost in Constitution simply because I'm happy so far that the GM is surprised by how well I can take a hit and it keeps me in the action longer, so really I'm just saving up to get the headband since thats my main priority at the moment.

Just as an aside, would anyone have any guess's on what Hector Barbossa from Pirate of the Caribbean would be categorized as?

I'd take a rough guess as maybe a Rogue Pirate 4/Gunslinger Pistolero 2. Of course, I'm not fully in the know on all these different archetypes being thrown around, so I'm taking a rough guess.

Heck, if the movies are anything to go by I'd also guess Jack Sparrow would be similar in many ways to Barbossa's class, though maybe add a way or two to add luck to his rolls.