Mightypion's page

You could just put a half-fiend and a vampire template on her.

Not even illegal since a half fiend is a native outsider still, and can iirc RAW be vampirified.

You could also, on top of that, use Azlanti as the base race, as Zurah is/was Azlanti rather then human.

Carefull, the DC of the spell like abilities is going to be pretty nuts.

Especially that of the unholy aura.

Other random plot threads in "tourism in the Abyss".

The Bloodrager is putting up "Wanted" posters for Minagho, accusing her of:

Being criminally bad at pretending to be a Paladin

Stealing an orphans least favorite puppets eyes for no discernible reason

Jaywalking without a license

Stealing Queen Galfreys sword and failing to use it as a sex toy

Between Glibness and their legendary items, both Bard and Bloodrager can get bluff boni in the low 50s.

Wrath of the righteous:

The party crashed through the midnight fane, slaying everything but Mustafen, as several people sought to impress Galfrey. Mustafen was rendered unconcious, bundled up, and left with Galfrey because, due to his Nahnydrian crystal refining knowledge, he represents some leverage with Nocticula.

Minagho buggered off, but managed to telepathically joinked Galfrey sword, who was not very pleased about that.

After arriving in Vazglar, the party looked at the jungle, was like "Hej, Arueshalae, can you describe in teleport capable detail how Alyushinyrra looks like?" and teleported.

So far, nothing in Alyushinyrra attacked us, and we just wrote ourself in at battlebliss. The Bloodrager, while traveling to the battlebliss, saw a Marilith (upper body of the female soviet weightlifter) juggling heavy weights as a work out routine. Said Marilith was like "what you are looking at?", threw a weight at him, which he catched and started to juggle as well.

The Bloodrager cast "Fae form 1", turned into a Rusalka (male), and started juggling heavy weights with the *tresses* sporting from his magnificient mustache. The Marilith was mildly impressed, and asked if he was in "Leashed-In, the Abyssal mercenary network". The Bloodrager had no idea, and it was then discovered that social media based on portable quickened scrying pools exists in the midnight isles, and that probably Minagho already created fake "instagib", "Onlyfiends" and "Leashed-In" profiles for the party members, in order to mess up their diplomatic outreach.

From my pov:

--Ideally you want high BAB and a good fort save. Reflex saves tend to be the ones where failing does the least damage, although they are more frequent.

--D10 hitdice is good

From the D10 hitdice bracket, Slayer gives 2 good saves, excellent skillpoints,

The velvet blade leads itself well to a social approach, witch killer archetype is also interesting, you could perhaps be a good aligned ice witch that is unfond of Irrisens other ice witches.

Ranger:
--The big draw in ranger over slayer is the animal companion
--You lose slayer talents and sneak attack

Bloodrager:
--You will need mad magic feat to cast while raging, and minimum 12 charisma (get a +2 CHA headband later). The bloodrager spell list is not bad for a debuffer, but it will scale of CHA which isnt your main casting stat, and the ring of vengefull bloodmagic only allows bloodrager spells to be cast through it. Probably nah.

Barbarian:
--Better hitdice then a bloodrager, and there are actually a few rage powers that work reasonably well for a ranged caster, but its a bit of a pain to cast while raging.

Occultist:
Give this a read, several of the implement powers are swift or immidiate action and can directly boost what a witch normally does, its also an int caster. And shape mastery in particular is great for a blasty winter witch.

It very specifically states "expend an attack of opportunity" and "makes an attack roll as if she were making an attack of opportunity" for the parry.

The riposte specifically mentions an immidiate action.

Thus, parry is the same as an attack of opportunity (which is no type whatsorever), and the riposte as an immidiate action.

It cannot possibly be a standard action since you typically take it outside of your turn.

In my opinion:

Parry and riposte says nothing whatsorever about weapon types.

You can parry with basically anything.

If you succesfully parry, you can riposte if you meet the requirements for "make an attack" which specifically states reach on the target, as such:

--You can parry reach weapons, but often not riposte them, unless you also have reach with the weapon you are parrying with.
--You can parry with a reach weapon, or a really big weapon, or next to anything
--You can parry with one weapon and riposte with another one. Which can be quite relevant if you have like, an answering off hand weapon and a more damaging main hand weapon. I would argue that TWF penalties, or secondary natrual attack penalties, apply in this case.

I see nothing against being unable to abuse parry and riposte to get an extra attack, by provoking an AoO during your turn and parry and riposting that.

Note, you almost certainly cant get more then one attack per turn since the riposte is an immidiate action.

Enjoy!

"First mate" will communicate extensively useing growls, eye movements and morse coding via face palms.

Dumb question to the GM:

Can Anais grizzly animal companion be lawfull neutral while she is chaotic neutral?

It should have next to no mechanical impact, but make things more amusing.

If Tessai gets selected, and people ‘ping’ on her Detect Evil, we may not even get out of the tavern :P

If we are in Bloodcove, a lot of people and other things will ping on that :)

Starting level is an excellent question!

No horseman? What is your view on other animal companions?

My character would only ride her bear if both she and the bear are drunk, which happens more often then it should.

Concept:

Anais La Valette

--succesfully purchased title of "grand admiral of the Galtese peoples Republic".
--about 5 or so regime changes after the Galtse Peoples Republic has been bloodily replaced by the "Democratic Republic of Galt"
--Galt never had a coastline anyway
--Stuck in bloodcove
--Has a sword, has a bear, will travel
--Doggedly refuses to explain why she has a Grizzly Animal companion (from her mystery)
--Her Grizzly, named "First mate" is frankly more reasonable and responsible then she is.
--"First mate" also holds the record for "most facepalms ever performed by a bear".

Party roles: Frontliner, face, gets into trouble, spellcasting although delayed

Build: Starts as Spirit guide Oracle 1 (Lunar mystery, curse tbd), then dips into swashbuckler 1, then reminaing levels are spirit guide.

Oooffff, may he get great rubs in 4 legged heaven.

Quick character concept:

Sigvörn af Skrellig

Iraeni mercenary, his tribe was driven deeply into the wilds by the Mithrans for worshipping a polytheistic pantheon including, among others, Dispater, Eiseth, Nocticula, Nurgal, Asmodeus, Gorrum and Szuriel.

He views worship as entirely transactional, is neutral evil, thinks Gorrum is a bit dumb and very strongly concerned with his professional mercenary reputation. He seriously hates Mithra, having lost close kin on their pyres, and may have been saved by one of Thorns allies from that same fate.

Mechanically, I think Bloodrager or Slayer with a 2 level dip in Antipaladin Insinuator, which is less "Anti Paladin" and more "Paladin but evil", and as a bonus point is really good at impersonating Paladins.

Due to reasonably high charisma, he can both smooze and smack, not very stealthy though.

Additional questions:
--Drawbacks allowed?

In the process they made, mostly by accident, spiritualist into an S-Tier Single level dip for martials who will also never summon the phantom.

Primalist Blood conduit (these archetypes stack) is quite nice because:

--Bloodrager spell list has a surprising number of bad touch spells, includeing the no save (but SR) touch of idiocy, and the penalty can absolutely screw over a caster.

--From primalist, you get access to strength surge, which the best CMB steroid available

--You start with Bloodrage and improved grapple at level 1, and then you still have your normal level 1 feat, and possible your human level bonus feat, and you highly likely dont need to pay the combat exerptize/dirty fighting feat tax.

A sample such character could grab the Abyssal bloodline, have scaleing natural attacks, get autoenlarge at level 4, and grab 2 rage powers, definitly strength surge being one of them, at level 8.

You do not have a way around freedom of movement, but from experience, CMB builds suffer from too high CMD, or from size issues, far more often then they do from freedom of movement (which can also be dispelled by your party).

Depending on your GM, he may allow you access to the final constrict feat chain if you use the Salamander bloodline.

From various campaigns:

Hell rebels:

--Our intrepid groups Aasimar Skald (although she and everyone else thinks she is a Succubus spawn tiefling) shenanigians with using her alter self SLA (which is totally what a Succubus spawn tiefling would have right?) resulted in the Chelish thinking that the "Silver Ravens" are a group of "beastsoul vigilantes" named "Powerwolf" "Steppenwolf" "Guano Ape" and "Lizard Wizard". Lizard wizard in particular is becoming notorious.

We have recently visited Vyre, where our socially anxious drow alchemist managed to not pick up a single "Oh, white hair and a youthfull soul" *invitation* from the queen of delights, who very much wanted to do some *experimentation*.
Our groups Swashbuckler and Skald would have eagerly jumped at that.

Also present was the Succubus grandmother of the Skald (as to why she is an aasimar, well, grandma got around), who completely ignored her, but opened up a bit when a side conversation of killing Aboleths came up. Apparently Granny dislikes them for ruining the single interesting and cool mortal civilization of Eurythnia.

The group, having made alliance in Vyre, is now seeking to infiltrate and exploderate Menador Gap. We have boldly pretended to be Asmodean churn envoy (the Skalds disguise skill is pretty good), and managed to take out Lucian under a silence spell, and then kill his Host devil pet. We are now fighting an Erinye, and have sold the mortal guards the idea that the devils were stealing their wages.

Lucians fate is a bit sad, as this is the first time we did not accept surrender. We have so far went out of our way to not kill people who surrender, or people who have no chance.

Carrion crown: Recently finished. Vera *Juggernaught B#%&+" Ulyanova, Irriseni Steelblood/Siegebreaker/Mutagenic Mauler ran up to the big bad, who was mouthing up on how he was immune to overrun, and simply grappled the nerd while the rest of the party stomped the unliving daylights out of him.

A new run of WOTR: We are about to boink the grey garrison! Vermlecks at the gate went down without too much trouble

Reign of winter:
Having forced the surrender of most Russian soldiers, partly due to the supreme diplomacy of "Sarge" our Lunar Oracles Grizzly bear companion (he has plate barding, and a large plate armored bear who is intelligent enough to draw painting in the snow is pretty good for diplomacy and intimidation in Civil War era Russia). Alas, one party member got a solo encounter with the "secret boss" and got geased to betray the party. We await the arrival of his identical twin brother.

Rasputin is about to be encountered for real

Way of the wicked:

Finished!

The forces of good tried to strike as the party was split! Surely, villains individually could not hope to prevail against a Solar?
Laughs in Half Marilith with 4 orc butchering axes. BRRRRRR.

Way of the wicked:

My half Marilith Bloodrager discovered the spell hellmouth lash, after getting betrayed by the antagonist of act 5. Inspite of not being able to speak, he was quite excellent in trashtalking adversaries anyway.

We did take out the Linnorm, and memed a fair bit.

Skulls and shackles:

Wrote a passive aggressive letter to a Chelish admiral, who has 5 Erinyes up at all time and probably a bone devil, as well as 25 Bearded devils, that is presumably chasing us. We are level 6.

Reign of winter:

Our Chaotic chuckleheads in act 5 needed some translation services, so they summoned some Succubi to communicate with the "boomstick fans". Did a splendid deal trading other peoples property (Boomsticks) which the party cant use for profane gifts and translation services. Got offered an employement opportunity to work as "Problem Solvers" for Nocticula once current things are done, since we are allready working for Baba Yaga its not a big switch. My charismatic Oracle is assembling a "boomstick appreciator hit squad".

The same GM is running WOTR, and has a thing were stuff parties do in one game affects the other game. Nocticula having access to modern firearms lead to a Baphometan crash research program, so in that WOTR (where I am not a player) the Baphometans have guns. The GM will likely have the mythic party run into our party in act 4 in that wotr, running a private military and smuggling company.

Still need to think on the core only, but ill manage something! Maybe a Barb.

Quick how to for AoOs at 30 feet reach:

--Its kind of a bloodrager special. Have a reach weapon (10 feet), cast long arm (15 feet) cast enlarge person (20 feet), have abberant or black blood bloodline (25 feet) some items increase reach by 5 more, although they typically penalize attack, or have lunge tree.

Bard is a fine thing for gestalt on one side. It has great skill ranks, several boosts and a pretty neat spell list.

Keep progressing in bard on one side.

On the other side, since things seem to be freely open, there are multiple avenues:

--Mutagenic mauler gets you a dex mutagen

--Vivisectionist gives you mutagen, sneak attack, and access to longarm extracts

--A single level in fractured mind/exciter gets you a quasi bloodrager that has a dex version, and a strong willsave boon

--Dipping in urban bloodrager gets you a +4 dex, although it will be a long time before you get to access the spell casting etc.

--there is a whip oriented swashbuckler that may be valid for you

--A single level dip in mysterious stranger gets you firearms, by a dragoon musket, suddenly be good at shooting.

--Featwise, arcane strike is a fairly easy +2 damage, although it consumes your swift action

--You could dip into lunar or nature oracle, and get an animal companion, and then take boon companion to have it only be one level behind

On Family reunions, economical warfare and bad ear puns.

Teleporting into Matharyn, our intrepid villains set up shop, and the now Vampire Oracle set around doing scoutings.

We figured out some thing of interest to lucratively hit, the national mint, a golem factory, a archmage seeking to hire mercenaries to regain HIS HOME TOWN AND SAVE HIS LIEGE, a cathedral or 2 and some assorted noble mansions.

The Bloodragers girlfriend-ex-nun was also present and the 2 had a long discussion about possible children, with the Bloodrager being quite pragmatic and trying to figure out how to ensure said childrens security. Which pleased the ex-nun greatly.

Shortly thereafter, 2 strange people showed up, a very attractive pair, and the more powerful seeming male of the two hugged the Antipaladin for about 30ish damage, addressing him with the name of the Bloodrager and telling him how proud he was as a father. The misunderstanding then got cleared up. To everyones surprise, the lady, who was totally the bloodragers Marilith mother, and the ex-nun did not try to kill each other, although none of the party were quite daft enough to interfere in the talk... between mother in law and wife so to speak.

As a family reunion, the motley assembly opted (after dominate-joinking the wizards) the hit the golem factory, where the Mithrans had also transported much of their money to. A massive battle with a Mithral Golem, and Adamantine Golem, a Gold Golem and a brass golem ensued, but the assistance of a half balor Brawler and a Marilith made this a lot easier.
It was rather comicall that the presence of his mother something resulted the Bloodrager in rolling like, 6 1s out of 20ish dicerolls, and a fair bit of fun was had.
The demonic pair joinked one of the golems for the "own use" but paid the party a rather supple 64K gold for it. They then both summoned a Hezrou each and told the summons to "have some fun its a lawfull good city" before disappearing to parts unknown.

Our party meanwhile adopted completely different shapes, with the Bloodrager turning into a Pannoti, dressing up in Noble outfits, and proclaiming himself Earl de Aubri, ambassador of the Pannotti Island.
In order to gain access to the castle. To the surprise of nobody, most certainly not the Antipaladin, the plan was so stupid it went out without a hitch.
We were now in the Adarium, the fortress of the king, and waiting for Chargi boy to show up so we could do our assassination.

The Paladin was somewhat perturbed at the Bloodrager apparently have a relatively.... wholesome family live.
The Bloodrager was surprised about this as well.

I have a fairly effective Steelblood (Bloodrager) X, Siegerbreaker (fighter)2, mutagenic mauler (brawler)1 lady (refers to herself as the Juggernaught-b##+& and makes use of bullette style for massive overrun shenanigians).

She will take a level in fractured mind spiritualist should she receive a sufficiently soul crushing will save loss.

So that would be 4.

She could dip into some swashbuckler type for parry and riposte, but it doesnt really fit the "I AM THE JUGGERNAUGHT-B$&**!" thing she has going for her.

Continued misadventures:

In pursuit of the most convoluted assassination plot ever (T.M.), we villainously saved one of the big black dragons (who is named Chargamon the black) spawn named Jeratheon knightsbane.

Who got agitated when our half marilith bloodrager remarked that he is pretty sure "knight" as in the Alyushinyrran fast food (a soft sausage surrounded by fried bread), not Knight as in credible melee combatatant. Alas, we bravely slew the "Storm king" a mighty thunderbird, after informing him that Korramzadeh, the mighty Balor of Baphomet also known as the stormlord, was annoyed by the copyright violation (our group habitually led trails leading to Baphomet rather then Asmodeus for nearly everything they do, its a bit of an inside running joke).

After our rescue of him, we flew over to Chargamons island, headbutted some smol drakes, regulated some errant plant life and did some negotiation with him. Turns out he wants the head of one of his rivals, a copper dragon named Eiramanthas with perhaps the largest porn collection in the multiverse, and an interesting collection of interplanar waifus.

Our Bloodrager, recognising the name, flew back to his tribal village and asked his "totally not a Succubus" boss about him, and it turned out that said "totally not a Succubus" indeed had a fling with said dragon, and has a long running rivalry with one of his consorts.
With some additional information gained, we traveled to the island of the copper dragon, engaged in a bit of a beach episode with the aquatic consort and came to a rather fun and creative agreement with the copper wyrm.

The copper wyrm agreed to getting decapciated and instantly raised from the dead, and we agreed to trolling Chargamon the black.
The was also a bit of a sparring session between our Bloodrager and one of his consorts, a former Rakshasa war godess. Who crit our Bloodrager for a bit over 200 damage, which resulted in him yielding. The dragon was impressed by him remaining standing however.

Apparently our angry snake boi was the third mortal to take her punch from her and survive, and the Rakshasa told him she recogniced his essence from a previous fight, and that his father was one of the other 2 who took a punch from her and remained standing.

Bloodrager boi got a sending from his parents that they would wish to meet for some family bonding, and bloodrager boi promptly suggested the Mithran captial of Matharyn for some "fun and wholesome family reunion". Although he was secretly anxious about introducing his ex-Mithran-nun girlfriend to his Marilith mother.

Way of the wicked 1:

The misadventures of our party continue, as we:

--Goad the Vampire lord Gaius Vestromo out of hiding, by having our oracle dress up the Bloodrager in the most ridiculous over the top Vampire outfit, get into an underground fighting ring, and use "Gnaeus Eastromo" as a ring name.
After accepting his cease and desist demand, the party made a reasonable deed.

--After some sacrificing some angels to his dark mistress, our Bloodrager became a half Marilith. The perhaps only male one. He also found out that his real mother is, as a matter of fact, a Marilith.

--We then assembled a mini army of minions, and assaulted the main cleric training facilities in the vale of Valtierna. Between vicious bugbears, Vampire spawns, Iraeni (barbarians) scouts and our main party, the outlying areas fell rather quickly. An all female Iraeni squad of Nocticula worshippers made more prisoners then everyone else combined, which resulted in some need for adjuciation, but we figured it out.

--The Mithrans sought to improve their innate cleric training with an annoying amount of Trumpe De Loils, so we killed the head priest like, 4 or 5 times.

--As we broke into the main cathedral, it was protected by the fires of creation, whose very dangerous effects we could observe from bullrushing some legion archon into it. After more shenagians and despoiling of relic sites, the fire was gone and we had our smack down with Ara Mathra.

--Who got sufficiently pissed at the Bloodrager the Antipaladin was able to murder smite him. Victory for Evil, Bwhahahahahahahahhahah!

--Our next mission was uneventfull, the already ruined city of Daveryn had little left to oppose us, although the Bloodrager kept being really good at getting people to surrender. His former Mithran nun girlfriend misunderstood his lack of violence against people who werent a threat to him at all as "Yay, he actually isnt evil!".

--We then proceeded to receive new missives, including a super convoluted plot to kill the king by recruiting a big dragon to goad the king into teleporting from his army into his fortress, where our villains were supposed to ambush them. After hearing the plan, the Antipaladin facepalmed hard enough to damage his skull helmet. "Clearly Cardinal Thorn is f*##ing losing it."

Can we use archetypes on the fighter side?

Possible ideas:

Snorri "Steroid" stronkarm"

Fighter alchemist.
Accidently confused the steroid tub with the booze tub, resulting in amusing consequences. Tries to sell booze everywhere he goes.
Chaotic good follower of Cayden.

Pär "Did you hear that" thundervoice

Fighter Wardrummer-skald
He has drums. He has clubs, he liked clubbing! He is agnostic on hitting drums or enemies, but the music will play! NG and worships Shelyn. Rumor has it he survived an encounter with a Marilith by impressing her with his drumming skills, cleverly using his mighty beard to operate 4 additional drum sticks, but most people just think he was shitfaced drunk.

Bill "Your momma" Burntounge

Fighter Cleric of Feronia true neutal like his deity.
Is very attached to fire, while other dwarfs thinks he is weird for worshipping a fire elemental, he is very much taken by her... large tracts of land.
Is a true master of the art of trashtalking. And has a strange compulsion to trashtalk things stronger then him, unless they are also very female and attractive, in which case he tries to woo them but typically fails in a fairly comical fashion.

Sevanna "barberian" Stridsdottir
Fighter White haired witch
CG
Experimented with other uses for alcohol, and made a shampoo, while very very drunk, that turned her into a white haired witch with Cayden Caylean as her kind of accidental patron. Has since tried to recreate the shampoo but failed, apart from one case which resulted in a weird vigilante calling himself the "Mighty mustache", who unfortunately exploded after eating a Brimorak.
Hates Barbers.

I recently had a hell rebels campaign sadly die after the end of book one, but my character was pretty fun to play.

So, healing is 5x 2d6 (channel) and a bunch of cure light/cure mod spells, lesser restoration via life mystery, some degree of access to wizard and sorceror spells via arcane enlightenment hex.

Reasonable AC because Dex based and semi swashbuckler, reach, will stand behind the melees or protect the backline.

Can hit reasonably accurately with a longbow, but wont be doing much damage with it, typically prefering to cast spells instead.

Access to CMW likely means that the Bard friend may want to grab heroism or mirror image instead of CMW :).

Spirit guide is a nice GM plot insertion device too.

The setup of the party is druid+Barb multiclass, a Bard, an Arcanist, a Bloodrager, a witch and medium yes?

Further question: The Druid+Barb seems to be level 6, other characters are level 5?

Ideas:
Spirit guide Life Oracle with a single level dip in swashbuckler.
Revelation Channel
Feats: Weapon finesse (swashbuckler), Weapon focus glaive (level 1 feat human), Bladed brush (level 1 Feat normal), Slashing grace (level 3 feat), combat reflexes (level 5 feat).
Has a glaive with reach and dex to damage, channels about 5 times per day for 2d6, has the positive energy affinities.
Gets some extra tricks from her possible spirit selections.

will PM you some background ideas

Quick draft,

are we at starting wealth or wealth by level for level 2?

Ideas:

Human Spell warrior going down the totem line with the water totem, eventually makes the party able to have freedom of movement, as long as she keeps performing.

Hands out some enchantment boni before that, can fight ok in melee.

Background:

Solveig Svartdottir Kellid refugee from the worldwound, specifically the lakes lost to the sun.
When the demons invaded Sarkoris, her clan fought bravely, but was beaten back.
In their desperation, they offered fealty to Ragadan the world serpent, knowing that he was unlikely to be friendly to the demons, and knowing that there was a portal to the first world under the lake. Ragadan accepted, and, to his credit, his fae fought alongside the kellids and gave the demon invaders a run for their money.
She was send as a "tribute" to the first world, from which she returned after some days in which she performed for the fae, only to find that decades have passed in Golarion, that the demons have overrun more of Sarkoris, and that the 3rd crusade (not demons, crusaders) have burned her family at the stake for worshipping a chaotic evil entity (which Ragadahn is). Being completely alone, she fled. Andoran was far kinder to her, and the thought of starting a completely new life, on a different continent from both the Mendevian inquisition and the worldwound demons, has much appeal.

I need to come up with a way to perform underwater, dance would work, but its not available for skalds versatile performance wise. Probably percussion, as underwater drums should work. Props if she ever gets to perform with a whale. That would be awesome.

She may or may not also be intended as a long term prank by Ragadan on the main enemies of this adventure path.

Ideas:

As a defensive mechanism.

As a power play

To reduce the power of Bikini wearing Succubi, because Baba Yaga knows Nocticula is up to something.

There could be a fair bit reactivity with Gorrumites (since it was the main war god of Sarkoris), Desna and Sarenrae also should have specific reactivity degrees.

Stuff I plan to do:

1: Andoran, Galt, Taldor and (in my game Sarkoris is independent and reborn after the worldwound wars, although allied with the midnight isles) Sarkoris-in-shadow all have a vested interest in making things for Cheliax annoying.
There is an element of maintaining sovereignity of the Silver ravens to not become puppets, and to balance Andoran, Nocticula-Sarkorian, Galtese-Callistrian and Taldane influence.
The alliance between Norgober and Asmodeus then suddenly makes some sense, as Asmodeus in this context would be opposed by the Lady in Shadow (who is a rival of Norgober as they compete over the areas of murder and assassination) and Callistria (who also dislikes Norgober).

The backing of relatively major powers makes rebellion also be less suicidal.

2: Swap a lot of Dotarii for Rack Armigers.

3: Natsiel is not Mestaman but Norgoberian, and specifically hostile to Nocticulas cult (both versions), taking her out gets brownie points, which she knows, which is why she responds positively when approached by Barzillai agents.

4: In the Ruby mascerade, I plan to use fake demons instead of Azatas, if the party has been backed by Nocticula (far more damning and thus usefully politically for Thrune then Azatas)

Quickdraft: Aenir "Pretty" Stridson
Fruuzki (Ice tribe, Frostclan) Steelblood Bloodrager

Until recently member of a mostly ice clan mercenary company, however, he was a camp follower/warrior in training for most of the treck they made, being pretty young.

Mercenary, relatively junior, seeks to make a name for himself as a Free agent. Isnt that enthused with going back to the frost lands to fight for some savior Jarl, may simply have a girlfriend in the area, or think that the local area is simply nicer then the far north.
Also think that hej, civilization has something going for it!

monies: 3d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 2) = 9 90 gold

Traits: Extremely fashionable (takes a lot of care of his personal grooming, and has a somewhat eclectic fashion sense, combining furs of his native lands with steel and more civilized clothing, jobbed a bit as a model, but while charismatic, wasnt quite hot enough for this.

Irrepressible: A boisterous and quite fun loving man, he can sometimes use his force of personality rather then his wisdom against attempts to charm and command him.

Faith: Views such things as strictly transactional. No God has so far blessed him, so why butter them up? Make your name, and the gods will make offers. Has no strong religious opinions.

Combat: Uses axes. All the axes. While spears are frankly pretty common amongst his people, Frostfang mercenaries with axes conform to employer expectations and can often bargain for greater rewards.

Throwing axe, Bardiche, Greataxe, battleaxe, humorously thinks that, if he ever runs his own merc company, "Axe effect" is a fun name.
Got scammed by someone who told him he was making a crossbow that fires axes.

Personality quirk:
Tends to play the barbarian while having a fairly reasonable intelligence score. Still gets scammed easily.

I am in 2 minds about encumberance.

I like that is gives some aid to STR builds (str is kind of a weaker stat then dex for many reason), but it can also penalize str builds since like...

Even with 18 STR, and medium armor, you often end up overloaded, assuming you want a) a ranged option, b) be able to deal all 3 basic damage types and c) a polearm.

Like, my prefered fix to the STR being weaker then dex disparity is well... you add half your str mod to your con mod for reflex saves and hp.

For pf1 adventures the design teams writing the adventures have generally designed difficulty to the lowest common denominator. That is to a player who isn't invested in their build and will choose suboptimal options because it sounds cool.

When you get that with at least one player who heavily invests in their build optimization it will skew the difficulty. This is true in non-mythic but is sharply apparent in mythic.

Very true. Something I did as a player is pitch my GM occassionally antagonistic NPCs. He had a lot of fun with these.

All "mythic" enemies in wotr as written are a nerfed mythic, which can surge but doesnt get half the benefits real mythic character has.

A non mythic party can seriously hurt a mythic party if they are specced for "non contact warfare". In an open fight they get clobbered.

It also depends on mythic tiers, at high enough tiers, all mythic characters get like, super evasion vs everything non mythic etc.

I gmed wotr a bit, the only non mythic enemies which managed to cause damage to reasonably optimized tier 4+ mythics were:

--Seriously buffed shadows

--Nocticulas "Succubus Speznaz", also known as a number of Succubi with mysterious stranger dips and Mosin Nagants.
Their tactics were if the "Kobold Kommandoes" were world war 1 vets and reasonably powerful demons with smart class levels.

--I did try to run grapple specialists, but while it was possible to get a mythic character grappled as a non mythic (handwaving freedom of movement away), the mythic character has like, a ridounculously easy time breaking the grapple on his turn.

--When I made a grappling specialist mythic, she was able to tie up mythic character in one turn from relative range, and ended up being a fairly unfair encounter. Like, if as the GM you try to threaten mythic characters, their is a high probablility that you overshoot, since in a lot of ways you are in unchartered waters.

I evnetually went for all the plausible non "kill of the Xes" combat goals, which made things far far better, but you cant do this for every fight.

The only demonlord as written who is truely dangerous (to mythics) is Nocticula, because she may beat the players in init, and has 2 dominates per turn at a DC that a mythic can fail.

Koschtschie is reasonably hard in a "mano a mano duel" because of his stunning stuff, but Baphomet and Deskari are kind of weaker.

Gestalt is reasonably strong since it often results in better safes, skillpoints or babs, character have more options, and a bit less weaknesses.

It is a lot less imbalanced then mythic.

It is much weaker then mythic in combat. Mythic has basically autopounce for anyone, a free standard action (costing a mythic) per turn, you can get like, with haste, 4 attacks at your full bab + whatever iteratives.

I think just full gestalting with prestige classes at mythic tier level is also quite cool.

I am trying to gm it and get into slight issues as well.

I did the following thing:

--As an immidiate action, expend X points of mythic power, you heal for X*10% of your max hp.

--Mythic vital strike is banned

--All bad guys start with some defensive spells

--There is a certain scammy cambion mythic alchemist who makes mythic bullshit to make contigency heal potions, although the party can also buy from him.
Just make sure you dont get scammed. One of my parties ended up actually liking Mustafen enough that they assisted him against Haagenti.

--And underappreciated problem is that wotr has really good loot, and a massive amount of it especially in act 3, and legendary item upgradeable allows for downtime less additions of new things, transforming gold directly into typically firepower.

--Legendary item is generally speaking super strong. Taking the spellcasting ability together with a 4th level spell list, such as Bloodrager or Paladin is potent, or you go for the incredibly good alchemist spell list. Whats more, casting via a legendary item is an SLA, so you can do this as an amazing initiative action.

Wall of surpression is typically subvertible by moving around it

So, mythic:

If you play it straight, with the excpetion of mirror dodge and, to a different degree beyond morality, mythic stuff has way more offensive then defensive applications.

Core only actually doesnt do that much to reduce the offense, vital strike is very potent in mythic because you can burn a mythic to have an extra standard, and mythic vital strike ups vital strike to a near full attack level, mythic power attack is also very strong, and you thus keep the mythic offense by being just core, without really having as many defensive options (for example swashbucklers. Succubus swashbucklers dont die instantly for example).

Generalized idea:

Aria Ulfdottir

A Sarkorian refugee, Aria seeks to free her people from demonic opression.
Her main class is an interesting combination of Spell Warrior Skald and Red tounge skald, which allows her to hand out both rage powers and rouge talents.
She intends to get even more rouge talents by using the rose warden prestige class.

This combination should make her a reasonable face, and greatly increase the flexibility of her party by being able to hand out basically martial flexibility (by using the rouge talent combat trick and picking up barroom brawler with it), and well, handing out celestial blood in wrath of the righteous is just great.

She may have some numerian tie ins.

Yeah, also, if I am intelligent I will seek to prioritize spellcasters, which this specific Paladin could use however, by pretending to be a sorceror.

I can rarely resist rolling so ere we go

4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (5, 6, 4, 5) = 20 ^16
4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (2, 2, 3, 1) = 8 7 drop
4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 5, 4) = 17 13
4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (3, 3, 5, 5) = 16 13
4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 1, 2) = 11 10
4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 2, 4) = 14 12

4d6: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 1, 6, 5) = 13 12

16/13/13/12/12

Not complaining!

We are level 4 and templates are allowed? Oh boy!

hitdice: 2d10 ⇒ (7, 8) = 15 18 hp at level 2

Ideas

"Ragnar Skuggason".

Half fiend Aasimar Abyssal Steelblood Bloodrager.

You may want to liberally sprinkle wands of dispell magic, lesser restoration etc.

A relatively rare Phoenix bloodrager can also dispell a bit.

I had the Nocticulan be active earlier, offering fast efficient and pragmatic solutions, at the cost of a degree of corruption.

Any bloodrager can trip someone, incluing via felling smash, and then AoO that person with a spell using a ring of vengeful bloodmagic.

While feat intensive, you could vital strike, use felling smash feat to do a trip as a swift action, have greater trip, get an AoO from the succesfull trip, use this AoO to cast a spell, and then maybe stomp the bugger with vicious stomp.

Bardiches are great weapons, Orc butchering axe is potent too.

Not so much because it is an extra D6, but because enlarge person and lead blades, both are level 1 things, can get it to 6d6.

If you have weapon groups as a feature, axes have a reach weapon, several good one handed and two handed no reach option, and a good throwing options, as well as light sidearms. Heavy blades/Light blades dont quite match that.

Question:

(Note: All casters gain 2 bonus talents and a casting tradition the first time they gain the casting class feature.)

Is there something similar for that for combat spheres?

And how exactly does one get a combat sphere?