Melvin the Mediocre's page

Thoughts I have had are:
1 ghost sound flatulence
2 change self, commit crimes looking like that person
3 silent image, pee stains on pants
4 silent image of person dancing badly in moonlight while wearing a diaper
5 animate rope to tie shoe strings to things so they constantly trip and look like a baffoon

I had an sorc/ zen archer / arcane archer that did this. He carried two efficient quivers like is said above, then also cast gravity bow. I found it to be a pretty easy solution.

638. Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought.

639. A book of limericks that subtly teaches the reader all the secret scandals going on at court for the last decade.

Fiendish Proboscis - how is using this on your allies not utterly and ridiculously broken?

Does and aquatic elf count as elf for FCB? I'm pretty sure it does not, but I remember reading that half elves can take human FCB, so I figured I would toss the idea out. Maybe somebody knows of a rule that would help me out.

I want the Crafty Crafter's Guide to Crafting and Special Materials.

I have always wanted to have rules that did things like base the quality of armor crafted from skins and scales to be based on the natural armor of the creature you used to craft. That way the plated of an ancient red dragon could be used to craft epic armor, while the plates of a juvenile would be less impressive.

Way back in first edition, as I recall anyway, the module "the Village of Hommlet", there was a mage building a tower that had figured out putting succubus blood in the mortar made it impossible to teleport through the walls. I think there could be all kinds of cool little things to do with monster bits, as well as special metals and woods. Does drinking the blood of a grig make you jump farther? Do sails made from phase spider silk allow you to sail into a fabled kingdom?

There could be new classes that use these components, like blacksmiths and hedge wizards. They don't cast magic, they create it like the dwarves in Nordic myths.

Thanks for the thoughts! Natural fang is an interesting choice as giving up a move action is less painful for a mounted character. In my case though, I think giving up wildshape is to much for the trade off. Wild shape gives SO many options as you go up in level. A small earth elemental lance is going to have a heck of an armor class. Plus being able to turn into fire, water, or air offers a heck of a lot of options.

My idea is pretty strait forward. I know it will not be as powerful as some dedicated fighter or paladin builds, but I think it will be very versatile and fun. It is a wayang dragoon 1 / druid 19. Any advice from someone who has used a lot of mounted characters, especially flying mounted characters, would be very welcome. This sort of character build is way outside my wheel house.

At first level I will take a druid with a roc companion. I will take the fighter dip at either 2nd or 3rd level, and then go druid all the way after that. I will use ant haul on the roc so that I can ride it at 1st level.

My character feats are something like this:
1 - Martial Weapon: Lance
2 - (from fighter/dragoon) heavy armor prof, all martial weapons, mounted combat, skill focus, ride
retrain my first level feat to ride by attack
3 - spirited charge
5 - natural spell
7 - improved overrun
9 - trample
11 - trick riding (or power attack if I am hitting easily)
13 - craft magic arms and armor (probably as far as this campaign will go)

My animal companion feats will be something like this:
1 - fly by attack
3 - toughness
6 - weapon focus, beak
9 - power attack
11 - hover

The main idea of this guy is to stay small and maneuverable. He will be using wild shape to get strength bonuses so he lances well. I expect him to be an armored chimp for a great deal of his low to mid level career. But he will also be a full caster so that he can buff, summon, and control the battlefield. This campaign will be a big dungeon crawl, so I think I will let my mount grow to large size, but then use reduce animal to keep him maneuverable.

I will admit I am hazy on the charging mount rules, but I think I will be able to use trample to power though mooks and lance the BBEG. What I would really like to figure out how to do is get the right feats so that my mount can shoot past 2 or 3 enemies and let me lance each one with my iterative attacks. I have not found a way to do that.

You can take the Magaambyan Arcanist prestige class to add druid spells to your wizard spell list, but they have to be 2 spell levels below your highest level spell.

Thanks for bringing that up. I had initially ruled it out as I didn't like the two feats it required, but looking again, I like it better than the build I posted above. Since I won't have to burn a feat to get a familiar, I'm not giving that much up. Plus it makes diplomacy a class skill for a nice little bump.

Fey speaker and fey spell lore are beautiful flavor wise. Is there anything similar to add druid spells to a wizard?

I looked at the pact wizard, but will look again to see if the Fey Gifts or Green Whispers patron would help that build. (PS - am I missing something on the pact wizard class? If you half your wizard level for the oracle curse benefits you only get the 2nd effect at level 20?)

I was trying to make a player character for king maker that would adventure well but form a faerie court between adventures. I went back and forth between wizard and druid a few times, but ultimately found neither to be very satisfying.

Just to fill everyone in as to where I am coming from, I have played D&D/Pathfinder for DECADES and have never once cast a 9th level spell as a player. I understand that King Maker will tap out at a max of 17th level, so that means witch, cleric, druid, or wizard if I want to finally hit that milestone (wands and scrolls don't count.)

I see the fey queen as having power of plants, animals, and magic beasts (like a druid) but with a strong strain of trickery magic built in via charms and illusions. I looked at the wood school for wizard, and it was not bad, but not as druidic as I would like. I also saw the alternate wizard class spell sage and it looks very interesting, but I am afraid my character will be to weak to survive the first few levels.

race: Gathlain
alt race traits: bower born and symbiotic imbalance
this gives me a fey character with entangle and bonuses to diplomacy and handle animal, a little faerie feel right from the start (but no int bonus)

class: wizard / spell sage
focused spells - less spells will hurt but having one damage spell upped by 4 levels will give me a once a day bang that will make me not be worthless
spell study: This is the appeal of the class. All bard and druid spells, though not often and really only out of combat. This is the real fey queen feel to the build.

skills:
knowledge, arcane
knowledge, nature
spellcaraft
diplomacy (not a class skill, but with bower born and student of philosophy trait I should be pretty good.)
perception
handle animal/use magic device
(eventually)
engineering
bluff

Feats:
1 wasp familiar
1 scribe scroll
3 spell focus, enchant
5 craft wondrous item
5 spell pen
7 improved familiar
9 greater spell focus, ench (or craft rods)
10 time stutter
11 infectious charms
13 greater spell pen
15 forests blessing
15 resilient illusions

What I don't like about it is that not having a school robs me of my use 3+int abilities plus my bonus spell. Adding that starting with an 18 int instead of 20 due to race means I will only have 2 1st level spells to start with as opposed to 4 + my school powers if I don't go spell sage.

I've looked at all sorts of alternate wizard classes that use shaman / adept / sorcerer traits thinking something would give me a good druid or nature based spell cross over, but I can't find anything. Anyone have better ideas?

PS - character is a kobold rogue 1 / invoker 3 / arcane trickster 7 if I recall the levels correctly.

I am hoping somebody can help me come up with something cool for a character that is about to be raised. The party is LE and 11th level. The game is pretty deadly and low treasure so I have used this to increase the PC power a bit to compensate.

Once character has been by far the weakest in party, so when he died while the group was opening a gate to Abaddon, he used hero (villain) points to escape death. I had him come back as a deamon host, but allowed his daily hit point drain to be healed along with other damage when he witnessed a death caused by disease he spread.

The party cleric died and had no villain points left. The party stoll a scroll of raise dead, but mishapped on the use magic device roll so I had him come back as a ghoul (sans the ability to spawn more ghouls.)

Now the wizard died, used villain points to come back (in a cool but non altering fashion) got plane shifted to the negative energy plane, and was killed in 1 round there (by the same creature that killed him on the material plane 1 day earlier.)

The party is ...acquiring... the material components for the cleric to raise him, but I am trying to think of some little quirk to add as a memento of where he died. This is the most effective party member, so I am not trying to give them anymore ammo, but they are a glass cannon so some survivability would not be a bad thing. I'm more looking for cool and fun than power increase for this guy.

These ought to see you through! They're maps Paizo has produced to cover all kinds of possible scenarios, and they're even used in several of Paizo's own printed adventures if you're into those.

Thanks for the tip, that is pretty much what I was looking for, but at $9 per destination it looks like a pretty serious investment. I also found some premade maps by www.gamingpaper.com however they don't give you a very good idea of what is going to come in their packs. Has anybody used them before?

Can anyone tell me where I can get a bundle of premade battle mats? I don't care if they are free, pay, print your own, or already printed. But I would like to have something I can pull out on the fly for all the common rpg scenerios; graveyards, temples, ruins, etc.

Running a module, an adversary cast magic missiles that did fire damage and had scorching ray. Her target has fire resistance 5.

I believe that the magic missile spell was considered a single attack and therefor all missile damage was added up and resistance applied once. The scorching ray consisted of multiple attacks, each ray had damage rolled separately and resistance was applied separately.

I'm not sure if that is correct; should each missile have had resistance applied separately effectively giving the target immunity to her magic missile spell?

My villians are at the Horn of Abbadon and have filled out a number of guards and sentries. In came the moon dogs.

1st night, the tried to slip past two outdoor bugbear sentries but were spotted. One of the bugbears made it to the base of the stairs to level 2 screaming for help, but the moon dogs dropped both bugbears then plane shifted away. Players thought it was a random encounter and did nothing but put 1 bugbear back as sentry.

2nd night, moon dogs got inside to level 2, snooped around, took out 2 minions. PCs found those bodies, realized they were being snooped and assinated, and took up guard duty themselves.

3rd night, moon dogs came up the same path, got spotted by pcs. There was a big battle, 1 villain was killed (saved by hero points), two PCs were feared away, 1 moon dog was at 1 hp, the other couldnot stand up to the remaining pc. Discovering they could not plane shift out of the horn, both dogs fled.

What will the moon dogs do next? I'm thinking they will take a few days to heal, then try exploring on the first floor. Here they will encounter a LOT more minions, and possible some prisoners. They could also go down to the caves where the boggards are. One of the PCs stays down there and has dropped and alarm spell. Should they start trying to kill everything they find? Or should they try to take out the PCs one at a time as they sleep?

I'd swap fireball for stinking cloud as it is more versatile.

A swarm trap sounds really fun. The mimic I would have never thought of. Thanks, those are gold!

Someone's got to have some fun ideas... anyone?

So I'm running an evil campaign, so naturally the PC's often elect to steal rather than purchase. What I could use are some quick ideas that I can throw out to make the larceny fun and interesting with out taking up hours of time or derailing the story line. Especially when only one party member is doing the thievery and everyone else is waiting.

I've used magic mouth and alarm spell traps. Money or small items might be in puzzle boxes / safes. Guard dog, animals, homunculous, or small pet monsters I have not used yet but can.

A surprise chance encounter of another burglar robbing the same joint at the same time might be entertaining once (actually thats how I met my wife.)

Any other ideas? Small interesting obstacles that add risk but can be resolved quickly would be appreciated.

If there was a trap that cast a wizard mark on the infiltrator, would it be hidden by a hat of disguise?

ushing the fact the other team was there to help them and was therefore subservient.

Did the PCs pick up on that on their own, or did it come out in a conversation?

When they returned later, the characters really enjoyed building something of a rivalry with them by pushing the fact the other team was there to help them and was therefore subservient.

Interesting, I was thinking of having the brute (forget his name) checking out their weapons and dismissing them as to small. I may play up the rivalry by having them asking how long it took to complete the dungeon down stairs. Trik might act really friendly, only to have Trak sneer and point out that their team has never had to escape from prison because they would never get captured.

Do you think Trik trying to sacrifice a PC is going to far? Maybe sacrificing one of their assigned slaves would be better, or a PC getting drugged by the wine he meant for their slave.

Has anybody who ran or played in a Way of the Wicked campaign any suggestions on making the 7th knot come alive? I have just run the first session, so my group will be meeting them next session. For the most part, none of them really get into character and interact with NPC though several of them would like to try. To that end, I would really like the group to come alive quickly, but not in a way that will be inconsistent with what is coming in book 2 (or later.)

I am starting a way of the wicked game in about 3 weeks. The cleric is going to be an unhholy barrister which means that he can use his channels to heal, but if anyone who accepted that healing dies with in the next few minutes, their soul is bound to Asmodeus.

If that happens, I thought it would be cool for Asmodeus to send them back as an undead. I'm looking for suggestions that won't be overpowering at low levels, but will still give a neato factor at higher levels. Any thoughts?

ShieldLawrence wrote:

A special ability's save DC (like a Breath Weapon) is an effect that depends on HD no? So it should increase as the familiar advances.

Hit points, skills, feats, spells, creature size, creature BAB, and a hundred other things 'depend on HD'.

However, that isn't what the line in the familiar description is referring to. Rather, it is saying that this is the familiar's HD for the purposes of RESISTING effects that depend on HD which are targeted at it.

If we treat it as HD for BENEFITS the familiar gains then familiars become vastly more powerful. Potentially more so than animal companions.

This was not the intent.

To the best of my knowledge, this has never been settled with even the developers disagreeing on the rule. Has anyone seen a definitive answer? Otherwise it comes down to a GM call.

If a familiar fails both the fort and will save vs baleful polymorph, is it still a familiar and what is its intelligence?

In our group my arcane archer went through a trap which cast baleful polymorph on every creature in the area. My character made the save, but his familiar did not. None of us knew what should have happened in regards to its intelligence score nor the familiar bond.

Baleful Polymorph
Duration permanent
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates, Will partial, see text; Spell Resistance: yes
DESCRIPTION
If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

Familiar
All familiars have special abilities (or impart abilities to their masters) depending on the master's combined level in classes that grant familiars, as shown on the table below. The abilities are cumulative.

I think the central point is that the intelligence of the target is to be changed to an animal intelligence, but the familiar's intelligence is a special ability which does not seem to be affected by the spell. Lets say a raven familiar was turned into a hamster. A hamster could very well be a familiar, in which case its intelligence would be set by the master's caster level. So yea... thats kind of where we were stuck. DM made a call and the game moved on, but it left that lingering curiosity.

Note that if you have a spellcaster who can cast Make Whole, ...If the spell is on their list, they shouldn't need to make a UMD check to cast it.

==Aelryinth

We don't, but that does bring to mind if I hire a wizard to craft the scroll, they may as well cast it for me. So thanks!

My poor little imaginary dude had his +3 bow sundered by a surprise attack weapon chomping demon. We are a 14th level party and have found there are no 20th level casters in the world to cast a make whole for us. So, what is the cheapest way to replace the weapon (we are quite poor you see.)

Thoughts I had:
Buy a new one
limited wish
attempt to craft a scroll of a higher level and UMD it
go to the forums and troll advice from some one more clever than I

I am finally prepping to run a much anticipated Way of the Wicked campaign. One of my players wants to play a kobold arcane trickster. Generally I am all for this, but as I have only read the first 1 1/2 books, I'm curious if there will be any trouble getting him involved in the story line or finding good campaign hooks? He wanted to take the public dueling trait which I thought might be a bit of a stretch, but slavery or some other back ground crimes could set him up for wanting some say in how the kingdom is run.

Perhaps an invisible stalker?
To bring a horror mood, I think you need a lot of little clues that something is going on that the party can't quite deal with.

The sounds of doors shutting, but nothing to be seen by the time they get there. A slight blur of motion just at the range of visibility. Get the PC's imagination engaged and hopefully their brains will fill in the horror.

Horror can be vey hard to pull off because if one person keeps cracking jokes, the mood will be ruined. If you bring a laptop to the game, playing sounds instead of telling people what they hear can be great. It keeps everyone quiet as they don't want to miss a clue. Dimming the lights and very faint (non disruptive) mood music can also help. (Bram Stocker's Dracula sound track is pretty good if you can keep 1 or 2 tracks from playing.)

The first levels of zen archer is pretty rough, you probably can't afford a decent bow, and most of what makes your build uber doesn't kick in until 2nd or 3rd level. From level 3 - 8 its pretty uber. I can't comment after that as I multiclassed to sorc 1 and arcane archer. (Which has also been really fun for an all wisdom based build.)

I mostly need help with traits and gear, never played a pally before and don't have time to figure out the last bits, especially gear.

Nagaji Paladin, sacred servant / oath of vengeance

str 20
dex 12
con 12
int 5
wis 14
cha 16

Worships Ithreia - The Order of the Gyrfalcon is dedicated to the Queen of the Blinding Wind and is composed of paladins and mounted warriors who serve as agents of her tests as well as her displeasure. They monitor proper use of birds and animals, and also serve as advisors to chieftains, or guardians of revered oracles or pilgrims of Ithreia. Her temples and monasteries are built of native rock painted white.

detect evil
smite evil 2/day
divine grace
lay on hands 8/day
aura of courage
divine health
mercy - sickened
channel wrath
divine bond 2/day select 3 bonuses (+1 cl to a spell or +1 lay on hands per day)
mercy - dazed
call celestial ally
mercy - nauseated
powerful justice

Nagaji
speaks common and draconic
+1 natural armor
+2 vs mind affecting and poison
+2 perception
+2 handle animal

spells, 3+1, 2+1, 1+1
oath spells, + father domain
eyes of the hawk (level -3)/2 bonus to perception, +2 to init if acting in the surprise round
animal companion (level - 6)

feats:
fey foundling
power attack
boon companion
mounted combat
ride by attack
spirited charge

skills: ride (11 ranks) perception (11 ranks)

roc (as 9th level druid companion)
str 23
dex 20
con 14
int 3
wis 13
cha 11
ac 18
speed 20 (fly 80)
attack: 2 claws +12 d6+6 and grab, 1 bite +9 d8+6
feats: multi attack, hover, weapon focus claws, toughness, flyby attack

HD 8, bab 6, fort +8, refl +11, will 3 (+4 vs enchantment)
skills: fly (8)
link, share spells, evation

I'm fairly certain Miracle would not be considered a low level spell in any campaign.
And while magic mouth is a highly enjoyable spell, it is far cheaper to give an item the ability to speak.

I'm actually 802 gp over budget with this plan, so I'm hoping to borrow from the party. But this is what I have:

Expeditious Pavilion (6400 gp)
Make it intelligent (500)
and can talk (500)
senses out to 120 feet (1000)
with dark vision (500)
wisdom 14 (1000) ego +2
5 ranks in perception (2500) ego +1
can cast a 1st level spell 3x/day [alarm] (1,200) ego +1
can cast jolt at will (1000gp)

Rolled on dice:
AL: CG (might be interesting, as my character is LG)
Special purpose: Defend a particular race or kind of creature (I'm a dwarf)
Retail price: 14,600
ego: 9

My plan right now is to jolt the little critters away (or to dead) and use alarm as a silent trigger, then the tent wakes up the occupants if he thinks what triggered the alarm is a real threat.

I LOVE the idea of swift girding, and it should only be needed once a day, so I'm thinking it could be as low as 400gp to add that ability.

I can see my dwarf and the tent arguing about whether the entrance should open up to the most logical attack point, or that lovely vista of the valley where the morning sun will come up and look just so lovely. But if its special purpose is to keep someone safe, it may agree with the dwarf.

For personality, I would go for "mother." "Now make sure to dress warmly, because it's raining out there." You can make it as Joan Crawford creepy as you like....

Way back in the 90's there was an April Fool's edition of Dragon Magazine with new cursed items that included the rug of mothering, it was a knock off of a rug of smothering and was always my favorite cursed item. If you ditched it, it would reappaer and make you feel guilty by saying how awfully you would treat your own mother, leaving her all alone in the cold dark woods while you were up to who knows what....

So I thought I'd like to get an Expedition Pavilion and make it intelligent so that it can act as guard all night. At first I thought I would give it the ability to cast the Alarm spell, but if you think about it, once the people are in the tent, any manner of raccoons, squirrels, and possums will come creeping around making that spell useless. Is there another low level spell that would be better for keeping guard?

Any personality traits that would be good for a tent? So far I can only think of a butler.

What happens if you try to refold a folding ship that is not empty?
If it folds up with the ship. what happens to a living creature that is trapped inside?

On those occasions when I knew what we were going to fight a session ahead of time, I used to write multi stanza humorous limericks for the occasion, then each round on my turn I would read one more.

We've always ruled the coup de grace kills it, sort of like a system shock. But every DM has room to make the decision. I can't help but be reminded of this.

I am playing a seeker sorcerer with a blood line familiar. So is it fair for my familiar to take 10 to aid me on skills like perception and disable device?

for example at 4th level I would roll:
perception =
+4 (ranks)
+3 (class skill bonus)
+4 (wis)
+2 (from trap finding)
+2 (alertness from familiar)
+2 (assist other from familiar)
--------------------------------
+17 Total

Remembering that it is tiny, you may have to check strength and weight to use a staff. It can definitely use your UMD ranks and ts Cha to use a wand. An imp familiar makes a great buffer.

Assuming you have a consular imp, it can use telepathy to be a fantastic translator. I don't think there is any rules support to learn different languages than you. It is using your skill ranks, not gaining its own ranks as you level.

Thanks for the discussion. I think I will look for something else. Hopefully with rabid chickens.

As I understand it, you need to do things like massacre a surrendered army, sacrifice sentient beings (cutting out their heart), and other things that are pretty much up there with putting kittens in microwaves. I personally laugh at stuff like that (largely because it is so extremely unrealistic) but I wanted to see if anyone has played the AP and had players balk/chicken out (and that was supposed to be a pun - you know you are funny when you have to explain something you said was a joke) at some of the gruesome evilness their characters are expected to do.

Has anyone found that WotW goes a little to far for any players enjoyment? I asked my group if they would enjoy playing it, and I got the idea one person said okay just to go along with the group.

They asked a few questions like were you supposed to just kill people for the heck of it. Since I have not purchased the AP yet, I really didn't know but I said you might have to kill innocents on orders and they all seemed okay with that.

Cool. So does anybody use barbed arrows? :)

These seem like a great idea. Shoot some evasive little ne'r do well with a hooked arrow attached to a rope, then reel them back to the fight. They are really affordable, at 20 for 2 gp. But is their use actually possible in game?

There are no rules I am aware of for how long it takes to attach a rope to one. I think it is safe to say no DM would allow it to happen in less than a move action. That is not to big of a problem for a single arrow, you can attach it ahead of time. But how many barbed arrows can you have prepped? Certainly you can't have 20 coils of rope neatly attached to arrows and ready to let fly. But this is important because, if I am reading correctly, the grapple is only allowed after a critical hit. For arrows that is a natural 20 followed by a confirmation. So VERY rarely. If you only have 1 arrow ready to go, the odds of it grappling are almost non existent.

I actually used one to impale an imp that was giving our 2nd level party fits. I fired and missed, then the dm let me pull the arrow back as a move action (a questionable ruling, truthfully) and the next round I actually confirmed a crit. BUT... I had forgotten to roll a chance that the arrow broke.

So am I missing something huge? Or if my understanding of the use is correct, has anybody found a way to actually make these practical?

An often overlooked bonus to the efficient quiver is that is stores arrows in extra-dimensional space. Throw some large size arrows in there and when your mage hits you with enlarge person, you can actually do more damage. Add in a gravity bow, and you have just become a walking ballista with the fastest reload time in history.

I'd say I fight a dragon roughly every other campaign I play in, going all the way back to AD&D. 1st edition dragons were actually kind of lame. Either they toasted the party, or they went down like a lead zeppelin. 2nd ed they got pretty interesting. By 3.5 and pathfinder they are really interesting encounters. Personally I have always wanted to play a martial character that rides a dragon. Perhaps that is the DragonLance books coming through.

It's simple: if you have players that like riddles and puzzles, give them riddles and puzzles. If they don't like them, then don't because it will be a pointless waste of time.

Yes, this nails it. I like riddles and puzzles so I like to have them in the game.

Bag of poo. Treat as Ghast Retch Flask.