Millenniamaster's page

My advice? The joke will wear off quickly, unless that's your group's sense of humor.

We've had plenty characters based around a certain gimmick to go with their class. I can simply expand the gross-out factor to general unpleasantness (without annoying players, obviously) when the situation allows for it.

I have a thematic idea for a PFS air kineticist that goes a bit like this:

- A chaotic neutral dwarf with 5 charisma whose air blasts are fart blasts (or electric blasts are brown lightning that smell much worse than ozone).
- He never voluntarily bathes or showers (it doesn't work anyway).
- Elemental Overflow causes him to become even gassier and smellier than usual.
- Wings of Air is just flight through nonstop farting.

I’m not too concerned about hyper-optimization and it's not meant to be mechanically different from a normal air kineticist, It’s just a fun concept I had floating around. I wanted some more ideas for flavor that would fit this character if anyone has some.

I’ve hit a bit of a conundrum with PFS recently and I wanted to get a few serious opinions on the matter. A little while back, there was a thread called “Season 9, The Year of Research?”, and one of my friends (second post) basically said he hated all the skill check marathons that PFS was doing that season and got plenty of flak for it. I had joined in on the thread, but I think I just derailed it further, so I thought I’d make this one instead. Season 9 has been favoring skills over combat from what we’ve experienced head-on, and a couple of people in my group have gotten sick of it, myself included.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve made an investigator just to get through the skill marathons and dialogue. His gimmick is this: although he’s a decent investigator, he hates his class, is unsociable (7 CHA), and is just in it for the money (Chaotic Neutral). Even though I picked my skills well enough, it hasn’t made the first scenario I used him in any better aside from speeding it up a bit. We ended up skipping the first 2 out of 3 combats because of this, the last one involving acid-resistant swarms that we we’re woefully unprepared for, all the while making me wish we ran something else. Being a video gamer growing up and jumping onto the tabletop RPG train later in life might be the reason, but I don’t enjoy foregoing combat in favor of a bunch of skill checks and huge streams of dialogue, which can turn into watching the GM and the skill monkey player talk back and forth for 50+% of the session with little else to do for everyone else (fun fun).

Bear in mind, I don’t dislike role-playing characters as a whole, it would be boring just playing cardboard cutout classes, but the method that some of these scenarios do it just upsets me to the point that I’m wondering if I should even continue PFS at all. What baffles me is how almost nobody else feels this way from what I’ve seen online, either they’re a silent minority, or they get shouted down otherwise.

So out of curiosity, am I the dumb one for feeling this way, or is there anyone that gets this vibe as well?

With the aforementioned wizard, I didn't try to specialize too much (Magic Missile aside). The problem is, I have this mindset in PFS: being a jack of all trades works about as well as hyperspecializing in something that isn't an immediate concern. For example, switch hitters are almost always going to be worse in both melee and ranged than if they primarily used one of the two, and against BBEGs, that becomes a problem. Skill DCs often have at least linear scaling with scenario levels, so I feel like I'm spreading my skill ranks thin if I dip into a skill.

Tying into what Davor Firetusk said, if that DC starts going over DC 25 (there actually WAS a DC 40 Survival check in a 5-9 scenario I played recently, no other skill option), that skill rank isn't succeeding at anything without other bonuses thrown in at the right time.

The "always someone better at the table" idea hanging over my shoulder along the way doesn't help matters either.

It's the year I stopped putting ranks in knowledge skills, even on knowledge-heavy classes. The game goes by so much quicker and smoother when you can file the first 33-50% of the game session off and get to the good stuff. It's like skipping the warmup comedian, and getting to the headliner. It's like eliminating wild card playoff games, and only letting those teams that WIN their division play. It's like PFS without commercials. It's like a family picnic without relatives or ants. It's been cathartic. I recommend it - if only for the look on everyones face when your wizard doesnt even roll a die when the knowledge planes check comes up.

I'm 3-for-3 at this strategy not affecting outcomes even one little iota this season. Im loving season nine now that i have adapted my character build style. Its glorious!

Reminds me of when I had played Birthright Betrayed with a wizard specializing in Magic Missile (it was either that or a BSF). My wizard had the big 5 knowledges tailored for monsters, not for figuring out "whodunit" or "whydunit". Now imagine how I felt when I was told at one point, "You can make a Knowledge (Geography), (History), (Local), or (Nobility) check.", FOUR out of five knowledges I didn't have. I would've been banging my head on the table if it didn't disrupt the session. That was pretty much how I felt throughout 3/4 of that night, and I've been dreading season 9 scenarios (or any skill/dialogue marathon scenario) ever since.

What bothers me the most about it is that Pathfinder is a high fantasy setting; with magic, mythical creatures, and a world where the sky's the limit on what writers can create within it, not entirely restricted by real life conventions as a direct result. But nope! We gotta go around the city to figure what this random, obviously evil dude did in Dicey Museum #627 in a setting that might as well be in a realistic fiction game for all it accomplishes.

I don't mind some skills or dialogue in a scenario, but not if it comes at the cost of watching one skill monkey at my table stealing the show and turning it into "Let's listen to him and the GM talk back and forth for 3 1/2 hours straight!". Now I'm half-tempted to make a joke character investigator to push myself through these kinds of ordeals.

You can't break a glass cup (vial, bottle, etc.) by dropping it on a stone floor unless you drop it from 10' above the ground.

A bit late stating this, but that also means you can drop 9 feet on your head and not suffer any damage, and that there's no difference in fall damage in general outside of 10-foot increments. I think I've seen only one instance in Pathfinder of a drop not being a multiple of 10 feet (15 feet in that case).

Millenniamaster wrote:

Going by Shinigami02's logic, a toothpick has a 5% chance of piercing +5 adamantine full plate

I will say to this, that while technically true, unless you've got strength backing it you won't actually "pierce". This is only true of Adamantine though, because Adamantine Heavy Armor gives DR 3/- and I highly doubt a toothpick alone is going to do more than 1 damage by itself.

You could have a rogue use the toothpick and get in a sneak attack (they could try to jab it into the jugular vein or something like that).

Three more examples.

• As per the aging rules, people see and hear better the older they are.
  
• You can reload a ballista with zero issues even if you have 1 or 2 strength. Thus, unseen servants make perfect reload slaves.
  
• Going by Shinigami02's logic, a toothpick has a 5% chance of piercing +5 adamantine full plate, and a Stephen Hawking wizard has a 5% chance of succeeding on a combat maneuver against a herculean martial character.
  

Something else I remembered.

Pathfinder says you need to eat a pound of food each day, with barely any regards to calories or nutritional value. You could eat a pound of fruit salad and be like, "I've eaten about 500 calories today, tops. Y'know what? Let's go walk 24 miles to this dungeon and burn about 5 times that many calories along the way!"

I wouldn't mind more Hybrid classes provided they're well done. None of the "let's just smash the core features of this class onto the chassis of that class" that so many of the hybrid Archetypes did, but more stuff like Swashbuckler, Warpriest, Brawler, and the like (giving its own twist to the combination) would be cool.

Exactly, this is what I meant by ACG being rushed out: besides editorial issues, the hybrid classes suffered from the problem you described (like how bloodrage is just a fancy pants name for rage). Just about the only hybrids that aren't terribly base-breaking are the investigator and slayer. After that, your mileage varies heavily on what hybrids are good or bad.

I'd be interested in seeing a return to hybrid classes. As much as I love the idea, it was kind of squandered since the ACG was rushed out the door. I've already seen a bunch of fan-made multiclass archetypes that could theoretically be their own classes so I don't see why not.

So, over a few recent game sessions, someone in our group brought to light how silly the physics in this game are beyond magic, obviously. At first, he pointed out that earth elementals can swim just fine going by typical swim rules (y’know, despite being a bunch of rocks), and that a colossal creature smashing a diminutive/fine swarm does no damage whatsoever. Then I realized going by the logic of that first part, lead golems don't have any issues swimming either (they have +8 to swim from STR).

I decided to post this online partially for a quick laugh, and partially to see what other examples of “Pathfinder Physics” anyone else can come up with.

Yeah, I guess tracking time would be a hassle at that point.

So in a PFS scenario yesterday, I used a waterproof hooded lantern since I think those are a better long term investment than sunrods. I told my GM and he said oil can't be conserved, so if I used the lantern for 5 minutes, it might as well be 6 hours for purposes of how much oil was used. I searched online and couldn't find any hard-set rules on lanterns and oil incrementation and its been bugging me since (yeah oil is 1 sp, but OCD wins out). Is there any kind of rule for this, or did the GM hit the nail on the head?

Millenniamaster wrote:

Also, I'm not used to take 10s or 20s, mainly because whenever I ask if I can take 10 or 20, I get told I can't (if take 10 is even enough to begin with). As a result, my mind is conditioned to rolling for almost everything.

Your GM needs a bonk on the head then. Take 10/Take 20 are rules that have been part of the game for almost 20 years (since D&D 3.0). Arbitrarily preventing players from using those rules just makes the game take longer to accomplish non-heroic, usually tedious actions.

My GMs don't do this all the time, it's just sporadic when it does happen, so I just decided not to try repeatedly most of the time. Then again, they told me at one point "you need to learn to take 10", so that isn't exactly working out.

On the subject of take 20s, most of our buffs rarely go above 10 min/level. Take 20s aren't an issue if they do, otherwise, that's what Read Magic is for. I'd much rather have it ready to go than say "Sorry, I don't have that as one of my 4 cantrips today."
Also, I'm not used to take 10s or 20s, mainly because whenever I ask if I can take 10 or 20, I get told I can't (if take 10 is even enough to begin with). As a result, my mind is conditioned to rolling for almost everything.

This is a topic I brought up in a game session a couple days ago. I've never created a spellcaster that didn't have Read Magic on him/her at all times (barring 4/9 casters), and with one tentative exception, I'm the only one out of 10 or so people in that group that does so. My main reason for this is that Spellcraft checks to identify spellbooks and especially scrolls are steep at low to mid levels. Even if it weren't difficult, sometimes a scroll could be the solution to an obstacle with no other option, and a 5% or 10% chance of messing up the Spellcraft check to identify the scroll otherwise is too much IMO.
Does anyone else here do this or am I just an oddball?

Dipping barbarian (or other gets-mad splat-class) on an odd level while taking Extra Rage and plunking down for the Furious enhancement is a right darn quick way to pick up att+4.

I would if I had planned for that. Multiclassing isn't something I'm comfortable enough to do on the fly yet. Doesn't help that I have +1 Light Fortification full plate already.

If you're enlarging before combat, the wand is probably fine. Both the wand and the potion only have 1 minute durations, though, so that could mean wasting a few charges now and then. Not a huge deal.

If you're enlarging in combat, the potion is probably a better option. For one, you can use it yourself, so you aren't asking someone else to use their action in combat on you. If you have a high UMD, you could use it (edit: the wand) yourself. However, enlarge person has a 1 round casting time. The wand will have that casting time, while the potion is just a standard (plus a move to take it out). That's 1 round, not a full-round action. So you start casting from the wand, and it doesn't go into effect until just before your next turn. I don't think using a wand can be disrupted like casting, but it's still a lot of time/actions to get it going and you won't be large for attacks of opportunity in that first round.

True, I would have to give the wand to someone else before combat. My fighter doesn't have UMD since I'm trying to maintain Perception, Knowledge (dungeoneering & engineering), and Survival, so he just drank potions here and there. As long as we don't get ambushed though, the wand is an easier investment.

Millenniamaster wrote:

- I did have plans to make the longbow adaptive, I can just sell the mithral longsword to balance out the cost.
- I have 2 clubs for DR/bludgeoning or sunder effects, and DR/piercing is so rare in my experience that I haven't bothered with it. I didn't mention them since they're free & found almost anywhere.

So far, I'm leaning towards the gloves of dueling Ferious mentioned, and buying a silver weapon or arrows to replace the mithral sword. IMO, getting a scroll out and handing it to a caster takes time and knowledge of the target's DR, not that it matters if I make the adamantine sword +3 or +4. Many of the encounters I've seen at least halfway through scenarios are different from what is told to the party at the beginning (and we're not exactly known for our scouting skills).

Oh yes, the Gloves of Dueling are definitely a nice item for fighters.

Silver arrows are more expensive than cold iron arrows (remember -1 to damage), but at your level still not significantly a problem. Especially since it is not your primary weapon that you fire them off in huge job lots. The other thing here you might consider is Durable arrows. I think they are in the Alchemist's Handbook and the Elves of Golarion. They make your special material arrows reusable. Then you just get a single firefight's worth of each.

If you buy the scroll, you hand it to the spell caster before the scenario even starts. When someone wit the knowledge skills tells everyone that the BBEG is highly resistant to anything except silver weapons, then you tell/ask your friendly caster to use the scroll on your sword. If it is not needed, he gives it back at the end of the scenario.

Yeah, I'm not sure why, but no one seems to do much scouting in PFS. It really can be a big force multiplier to know what is up ahead. I'm actually starting a PC that will get pretty good at it using his familiar for the scout.

Forgot to mention, if you have a lot of excess prestige points sitting around contributing...

Good point on the wands, I'll invest in an Enlarge Person wand since it's my go to buff (that'll leave me with 20 Prestige).

My recommendations, for what they are worth, are as follows:

- I would put Adaptive on the longbow to take full advantage of your strength even if you drink enlarge person potion, get a better belt, or whatever.
- Consider a scroll or two of Versatile Weapon instead of the multiple swords. There is usually someone in the group that can cast it for you if it is really needed.
- I would probably sell the mithral sword to use the cash for something else. With your strength, power attack, vital strike, etc... A bit of DR probably won't make as much difference as having all the enchantments on the one sword you always use.
- In general, a + to hit and damage usually adds up to more damage over the long haul due to allowing more iterative attacks to land. Having said that, I find things like the Holy enchantment to be more fun to use. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Either is perfectly viable.
- I would increase your cloak to +5 as soon as possible. A dominated high level fighter in the middle of the party during an encounter is a nightmare.
- Cold Iron arrows and blunt arrows are a stupidly cheap way to get past some DR.
- I would probably carry at least 1 back-up weapon. (Maybe a morning star to get piercing and blunt.) You probably don't want to take your god-sword up against a rust monster or a sunder expert.

- I did have plans to make the longbow adaptive, I can just sell the mithral longsword to balance out the cost.

So far, I'm leaning towards the gloves of dueling Ferious mentioned, and buying a silver weapon or arrows to replace the mithral sword. IMO, getting a scroll out and handing it to a caster takes time and knowledge of the target's DR, not that it matters if I make the adamantine sword +3 or +4. Many of the encounters I've seen at least halfway through scenarios are different from what is told to the party at the beginning (and we're not exactly known for our scouting skills).

Well, your feats are a bit sporadic for a Sword/Board master. Fighters typically don't need Dodge, Imp. Initiative, Step Up or Combat Reflexes for a Sword/Board build as much as they need feats like Imp Shield Bash, Shield Slam, Bull Rush, etc.

That being said, your build isn't weak per se; those are all solid feats, but typically you want to be building "towards" a build that really starts becoming powerful around the lvl 6-11 range. (For example, you can finish out your entire Cleave/Imp.Cleaving Finish feat chain by level 6 and you'll be an AoE whirlwind of death, add Cornugon Smash, Imp. Critical, a Cruel (+1) enchant and a Culling (+2) enchant and your DM won't even know what to do with you around lvl 8-10ish). I know this is your first toon, so keep that in mind as you continue playing this character and in future campaigns. Also, in the future, Fighters are extremely item dependent because of consumables and upgrading their armor/enchants. The Trait "Dusk Agent" can really help maximize your coin over the lifetime of a campaign.

Current Build Recommendations:
Since you already have Step Up, I would advise you to finish the feat chain and get Step Up & Strike. Also, since you're going Vital Strike, I'd recommend getting Improved Vital Strike at lvl 11, Devastating Strike at 12, (then Following Step at lvl 13, Step Up & Strike 14, Disruptive 15) and Greater Vital Strike at lvl 16. At some point before you get Greater Vital Strike at lvl 16, figure out a way to increase your Size (either from party buffs or with Enlarge Person potions). Greater Vital Strike becomes absolutely monstrous damage output when you're wielding a large or a huge weapon. (For example, a medium Longsword deals 1d8 dmg, a Huge Longsword is 3d6 dmg. So with Greater Vital Strike, Devastating Strike, and Huge Size, you would deal 3d6+x dmg PLUS 9d6+6 dmg). And if you're a Large/Huge target with Disruptive, you threaten everyone within 10/15ft, which really sucks for enemy casters. And if anyone takes a 5ft step...

A lot of those feats I just picked up as I leveled. Again, first character, I didn't really know how to plan ahead with feat trees. That said, I'm skeptical with the shield bash line since many of my enemies at this point had DR/adamantine, DR/-, etc. and I didn't build this character with that in mind anyway. My character has done surprisingly well so far despite all of that (he does use potions of Enlarge Person like you mentioned). I'll try the feats you recommended, maybe retrain an existing feat to help, and see if that gets me anywhere.

You're right at the point where it's just barely going to take 2 scenarios to get enough gold. You need 16,000, and you should get around 7700 from a tier 10-11. Do you have something worth 1,000 gold you could sell to get the extra 500 or so you'll need?

Do you have trouble hitting things? If so, Holy won't help you.

Do you do enough damage to not care about DR/cold iron or silver? Holy will help you power through those against an evil creature, but not neutral. You're a fighter, so presumably you do decent damage already.

Do you have gloves of dueling? They would cost slightly less for the same +2/+2 of a +2 weapon, but they wouldn't give the ability to overcome DR.

Basically, if you do enough damage that you don't care about overcoming cold iron or silver, and you aren't having trouble hitting, then Holy would help you overcome DR/good and would do more average extra damage.

If an extra +2 to-hit means you start hitting with your second iterative, that's probably going to do more damage than holy.

I had a bit of trouble with money management early on (first character), so I'll be hard-pressed to sell something to make up for the difference unless I decide to trade the mithral longsword for silver. I forgot about the gloves of dueling though, so I'll probably invest in those first and get holy later on (assuming I play this character past level 11).

Millenniamaster wrote:

I'm playing a level 10 fighter (no archetype, 1 XP away from 11) whose primary weapon right now is a +1 adamantine longsword. At the moment, he has 7737 gp to spend and I don't want to stick to a +1 longsword for much longer. Should I save up for a Holy weapon property or just go with +2 and up?

If you could post your current/proposed build and where you'd like to be and what you'd like to be doing, it would be immensely helpful for figuring out what kind of advice you need. A lvl 10 Fighter with a +1 Adamantine Longsword isn't much to go off simply due to the plethora of avenues that a lvl 10 fighter can take as far as items and enchantments.

Right now, he's:

Human Fighter (No archetype)

STR 22
DEX 14
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 7

Not counting consumables or mundane gear, his other primary items are:
+1 longsword (Bought w/ prestige. Bad idea, I know)
Masterwork cold iron longsword (Prestige)
Mithral longsword
+2 darkwood heavy shield
+1 darkwood composite (+4 STR) longbow
20 arrows + 8 adamantine blanched arrows
+1 light fort. full plate
ring of protection +2
amulet of natural armor +2
Belt of Physical Perfection +2
Cloak of Resistance +3
cracked dusty rose ioun stone (Prestige)

Feats:
Power Attack
Dodge
Weapon Focus (longsword)
Greater Weapon Focus (longsword)
Combat Reflexes
Step Up
Shield Focus
Weapon Specialization (longsword)
Improved initiative
Vital Strike
Iron Will
Improved Critical (longsword)

Traits:
Reactionary
Auspicious Tattoo

Weapon Training:
Heavy blades +2
Bows +1

TL:DR - He's a sword & board tank who can fall back on bows if running up to enemies doesn't work.

If there's anything else I should include, let me know (I'm a noob with messageboards).

I'm playing a level 10 fighter (no archetype, 1 XP away from 11) whose primary weapon right now is a +1 adamantine longsword. At the moment, he has 7737 gp to spend and I don't want to stick to a +1 longsword for much longer. Should I save up for a Holy weapon property or just go with +2 and up?

A half-orc alchemist threw our gnome into combat as a weapon, which worked surprisingly well.

Early in my PFS days, my fighter dropped his weapon and shield, ran up to a young/very young white dragon, grappled it, and then pinned it to the ground while the rest of the party wailed on it.

Almost forgot, but enemy rogues with no ranks in Perception. (Really?)

Ok, that makes more sense, thanks!

One thing that isn't clear to me about enhancement bonuses for weapons or armor is whether or not you can increase them. Is it possible to do so? If so how exactly does it work?