MinstrelintheGallery's page

There were, however, tons of awesome ones in the old ages.

OR you could multiclass fighter and Samurai- Four levels of Fighter should do it pretty nicely. It gets you three feats, bravery and armor taining, all of which should be helpful.

Weapon master fighter also fits.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

Drakli wrote:

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

I'm going to play the party Belmont, and yes, I'm having this problem myself- I can't figure out a good replacement, because my brain keeps yelling "Belmont!"

Try calling out "Belmondo!" in a dramatic voice, and fire up a brief Mariachi sting on an mp3 player, iphone, or whatever; and see how that fits you. It worked wonders for us.

Tempting...

wouldn't it kind of hurt the horror atmosphere? (In my group keeping a serious atmosphere is a pipe dream anyway, it doesn't really need help from...Belmondo!

Actually, part of my character's back story is that an ancestor some years in the past (a couple centuries or so)fell to vampirism, and rose to power, the family has been trying to undo his damage all this time. Most could fight the ancestor directly, and they don't know where he is, so they make due by fighting evil wherever they find it.

Are there any powerful Ustalavi vampires that could fill this role? Maybe I could use that surname.

Take your pick. Ashes at Dawn is full of 'em. Try Rule of Fear if you'd rather not be meeting your ancestor in the undead flesh.

I have no problem meeting my clans ancestor, but I don't want to read ashes at dawn, for I don't want spoilers. And the only one I noticed in rule of fear is Ristomaur Tiriac, who might work, but I'm not sure...

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

I'm going to play the party Belmont, and yes, I'm having this problem myself- I can't figure out a good replacement, because my brain keeps yelling "Belmont!"

Try calling out "Belmondo!" in a dramatic voice, and fire up a brief Mariachi sting on an mp3 player, iphone, or whatever; and see how that fits you. It worked wonders for us.

Tempting...

wouldn't it kind of hurt the horror atmosphere? (In my group keeping a serious atmosphere is a pipe dream anyway, it doesn't really need help from...Belmondo!

Actually, part of my character's back story is that an ancestor some years in the past (a couple centuries or so)fell to vampirism, and rose to power, the family has been trying to undo his damage all this time. Most could fight the ancestor directly, and they don't know where he is, so they make due by fighting evil wherever they find it.

Are there any powerful Ustalavi vampires that could fill this role? Maybe I could use that surname.

Random note, in my Carrion Crown campaign, we have a player who wanted to play an Inquisitioner with a family history for fighting monsters and evil, like the Belmonts.

Only thing is, he couldn't think of a family name for the life of him. He's really bad at thinking up names. I told him I'd call him Belmont until he came up with a name. Then, about halfway through the first module, I got tired of calling him that, and just offhandedly started calling him Belmondo!

It stuck. Everyone loved it and started calling him that, and it was just hilarious, and awesome, and he digs it.

For reference's sake, when saying "Belmondo," if you don't say it with a ridiculously dramatic flair, you're doing it wrong. It helps if you add a musical sting on the end.

I'm going to play the party Belmont, and yes, I'm having this problem myself- I can't figure out a good replacement, because my brain keeps yelling "Belmont!"

if you go with a class that gives martial weapon prof you could be a half orc, and take:

Beastmaster: Some Half-orcs have a spiritual kinship with fantastical beasts, capturing them for sport or living and hunting with them. A Half-orc with this trait treats whip and net as martial weapons and gains a +2 bonus on Handle Animal checks. This racial trait replaces the orc ferocity racial trait.

and

Chain Fighter: Some Half-orcs have escaped from slavery and reforged the chains of their imprisonment into deadly weapons. Half-orcs with this racial trait are proficient with flails and heavy flails, and treat dire flails and spiked chains as martial weapons. This trait replaces the weapon familiarity racial trait.

and

Cavewight: Some Half-orcs live far from the surface, seeking solace in winding cave complexes. Half-orcs with this racial trait gain a +1 bonus on Knowledge (dungeoneering) and Survival checks made underground. This racial trait replaces the intimidating racial trait.

And with dark vision, you've got an excellent castlevania type character

I've considered this, but half-orc really isn't the way I wanted to go, nothing against half-orcs, it just doesn't fit the character I envisioned.

I'll be posting the build I'm going with, I'm going half-elf with the ancestral arms variant racial trait.

did the exact same thing in carrion crown this summer, playing a Belmont. Half elf using the scorpion whip so i could hurt things. did first level ranger, everything after inquisitor, so i could get weapon focus whip at level one, then power attack and cleave by lv 5, stopped right before i got great cleave, would have been great. +3 dmg to undead from favored enemy and the trait subject of study made the whips low damage not much of an issue vs undead. had a number of daggers and throwing axes to use in melee with the off hand, not two weapon fighting, just not using the whip in melee. good times. though i did wuss out on the concept by using a shield for a few levels.

I'm going half elf, but I'm going to try to go full inquisitor, as we have another ranger in the party.

I'm going shield as well- no reason to waste a hand.

Did you see this thread? Seems tailored for you. Very good archetype.

That's actually pretty good, it might be better than the vampire hunter archetype, but my group has a pretty firm no homebrew rule.

very cool though.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

Bardess wrote:

Half-elf and Ancestral Arms and you can have the whip.

Also, take the Souls subdomain as your inquisition and you can kick many an undead butt.

I was in fact thinking of using the souls domain, as it saves me the cost of a ghost touch weapon.

I'm thinking that the heirloom weapon trait is the way to go for whip proficiency.

I would not go vampire hunter inquisitor. It messes up bane too much. Bane will make your whip insane. Especially if you go the whirlwind attack route.

Yeah, I think your right, the regular inquisitor is better overall, I just have to see if scorpion whips can be made silver...

The Slenderman mythos is one of the creepiest things I've ever read.

Downloaded.

Half-elf and Ancestral Arms and you can have the whip.

Also, take the Souls subdomain as your inquisition and you can kick many an undead butt.

I was in fact thinking of using the souls domain, as it saves me the cost of a ghost touch weapon.

I'm thinking that the heirloom weapon trait is the way to go for whip proficiency.

So, we are getting ready to play Jade Regent and th DM has decided to use a 25 point buy and for everyone to be gestalts with Bard required to be one of the classes. I've decided to be s Sea-Singer and make him a pirate. but Im not sure about what tomix with the Bard. the Pirate archtype for the rogue overlaps too much. I've been thinking of Oracle, Inquisitor, or Gun Slinger, but Vanilla? Archtype? Mystery? etc. any Ideas?

Mysterious Stranger gunslinger or Ranger.

Or multiclass the two.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

here's the pertinent statistics for a level one inquisitor

** spoiler omitted **

thoughts?

cant have power attack or WF whip. BOTH have a bab 1 pre req

What?! Curses, you're right- this is frustrating to say the least.

...or you could Go Eldrict Heritage, use the Knowledge Focus in Religion...you'd need it in this campaign. Then Eldritch Heritage Arcane Bloodline: Arcane Bond (Whip).

nice- I'll just need to rearrange some attributes.

Spire Defender (Magus Archetype)etc...

This is a pretty cool archetype, but the Mordant Spire is pretty far from Ustalav, and I was planning on making my character a lifelong native...

I might HAVE to take the vampire hunter archetype as it's the only way I can make a whip silver for an inquisitor that I can think of...if only it didn't muck up Bane...

here's the pertinent statistics for a level one inquisitor

thoughts?

I also attempted to make a Belmont-style character. I mean, how could you not after seeing the new whip feats? Honestly, I'd say that your two best options, with the penalties and drawbacks would be:

A) Your Bladebound Kensai magus build. Granted, perfect strike is going to be a sub-par ability to you, since the whip is not really fantastic for damage or critting. However having the magic abilities can increase your versatility, and your patience will eventually be rewarded with Iaijutsu and Superior Reflexes, giving you unparalleled ability to fling out multiple AoO's. Couple this with tripping feats and you can be a very flexible damage dealer and combat controller. In my humble opinion, you'd probably do better avoiding the kensai though and just using the bladebound archetype (or heck, go all Simon's Quest with a whip and shield Bladebound Skirnir). Kensai is much more engineered towards using high threat range decent damage weapons, such as the katana (surprise surprise), scimitar or rapier. If you go magus, don't forget about the Maneuver Mastery arcana; really nice for pulling off those trips or disarms.

B) I ended up making a Witch Hunter Inquisitor and it worked out really well for me. The character is pretty nasty at being able to take down undead but will be able to very effectively shut-down any magic user that gets within whip reach, especially with the Spellkiller Inquisition. Teamwork feats such as Precise Strike and Tandem Trip can also be very useful to this build, especially if you intent to work together with your Grant guy a lot. While this build can't quite shovel giant heaps of damage onto your foes like the magus can, You maintain a touch more combat versatility, divine spellcasting, and most importantly a more Belmont-esque feel.

Hope this helps.

This helps a bit- The main reason for kensai is the free Exotic weapon Proficiency (that and plenty of Belmonts go armorless), and i thought the vampire killer was a pretty good blackblade weapon. The Magus arcanas Maneuver Mastery, Ghost Blade, DevotedBlade and Bane Blade all worked to. That coupled with the magus not using off hand weapons created my consideration.

As for the witch hunter, I'm not a huge fan of the archetype, at least for this build. I feel that both monster lore and track fit better for a belmont than spell sage and spell scent- bonuses for hunting monsters, rather than fighting witches.

I did download the inner sea magic book, and I kind of like the vampire hunter archetype- even if the downgrade to bane hurts it. The judgement tweaks could be a godsend though.

This whole thing is frustrating me- I'm going to have to try and build a character- at levels 1, 5 and 10; just to see if the math is any good. If that doesn't work out I'm going to build a gun toting inquisitor instead.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

Bardess wrote:

I'd say Half-Elf Inquisitor with the Vampire Hunter archetype, and then multiclass with Archaeologist Bard or Detective Rogue. The whip can be an Ancestral Arm or your god's favorite weapon. Vengeance would be a good inquisition choice.

Vampire hunter archetype?

It's an archetype from Inner Sea Magic for the Inquisitor.

You gain bonuses on crafting silver weapons/items that make your weapon count as alchemical silver, a few modifications to your Judgements (double bonus vs. disease and energy drain instead of curses and poisons, count your weapons as alchemical silver when using the smiting judgement), you can keep your undead bane property on your weapon even if you aren't holding it and an ability to do extra damage against creatures vulnerable to sunlight (it also makes your weapon glow).

You give up the ability to detect alignment and to choose any creature but undead for your Bane/Greater Bane abilities.

The change to bane is painful, the other stuff is nice.

I'd say Half-Elf Inquisitor with the Vampire Hunter archetype, and then multiclass with Archaeologist Bard or Detective Rogue. The whip can be an Ancestral Arm or your god's favorite weapon. Vengeance would be a good inquisition choice.

Vampire hunter archetype?

mcbobbo wrote:

One easy route to getting that Exotic Prof would be to make a Half-elf and go for Ancestral Arms. Though, a human could just burn a bonus feat anyway. So... nevermind.

:)

kinda. Remember EWP has a prereq of BAB 1. Unless your a full bab class you cant take EWP at 1st as a human

I didn't know that

One easy route to getting that Exotic Prof would be to make a Half-elf and go for Ancestral Arms. Though, a human could just burn a bonus feat anyway. So... nevermind.

:)

might be worth it for the favored class thing for multiclassing though.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

Xum wrote:

With the new whip feats, it's nasty what a whip can do.

Seriously? I would go 2-weapon fighting scorpion whip, feat intensive? Yes. Awesome? Yes. Crazy good? HELL YES.

Two weapon fighting with a whip?

That's the most feat intensive build I've ever heard of.

WAIT! make the off hand weapon a throwing weapon. There, now it's worse.

It is feat intensive. But also wickedly powerful. I doubt anyone would be able to get withing 5 feet of you, and they would be tripped, disarmed, grappled and DEAD before they got there.

Seriously, the new whip feats are VERY powerful, multiply it by 2 and there u have a WHIRLWIND OF DOOM!

What's the total feat list for this to work?

Let's see... Vampire Killer was always described as a whip, as Krispy said before, but don't forget Castlevania III let you power it up to a chain whip and a long chain whip- I don't see why you can't use a spiked chain as an equivalent Vampire Killer (eventually giving it +# Holy Undeadbane).

Don't forget that as the group's resident Trevor Belmont expy, you have the subweapons- throwing daggers, throwing axes (or battleaxes combined with Throw Anything), flasks of holy water, a +1 Returning boomerang shaped like a crucifix, and an antique pocketwatch (for flavor purposes because the pocketwatch sucked.) Maybe some +1 Studded Leather armor, too.

I'd say go fighter, actually.

That's one way to do it (by the way, use a starknife for the cross boomerang) as a fighter.

I was just hoping to do a more skill-focused character...(looks at inquisitor and sighs).

With the new whip feats, it's nasty what a whip can do.

Seriously? I would go 2-weapon fighting scorpion whip, feat intensive? Yes. Awesome? Yes. Crazy good? HELL YES.

Two weapon fighting with a whip?

That's the most feat intensive build I've ever heard of.

WAIT! make the off hand weapon a throwing weapon. There, now it's worse.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

I think monks are proficient with nine section whips as well- so I could skip fight altogether and go straight martial artist? Or maybe Martial Artist/inquisitor?

Unless you've seen errata I have not, monks do not gain proficiency in any of the new monk weapons outside of core that dont explicitly say they do (like the temple blade).

Unarmed fighter EXPLICITLY says they gain all monk weapons for proficiency, including exotic ones.

I'd check with yoru GM though.

Good point. I'd prefer going straight inquisitor, all things being equal though.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

So here's my question then: If I took ewp:nine section whip 9rather than scorpion whip), what could I build?

Something completely awesome?

I would almost recomend Unarmed Fighter; it gets you proficiency with the nine-section whip, a free style feat (I'd go with Crane, so you can take advantage of Blocking on the whip at only a -2 to your fighting defensively; take three ranks in acrobatics for jumping ability and then extra AC fighting defensively), the ability to fight unarmed (sweet slide kicks and such), and bonus feats at 2 and 4.

I'd bail on that after 5 (and weapon training for gloves of dueling) and look at something with a holy theme (cleric or inquisitor) or if you want to stay martial, go martial artist. More bonus feats, flurry with your whip, jump bonuses etc. will all make you a badass Belmont guy.

I think monks are proficient with nine section whips as well- so I could skip fight altogether and go straight martial artist? Or maybe Martial Artist/inquisitor?

The Vampire Killer is always described as a whip, but it kindof LOOKS like a spiked chain. Thats another option you could consider?

I'd choose the nine section whip (ultimate combat) before the spiked chain, but yes, I've considered it- it's just that in the art, it's ALWAYS a whip, in game-sure, it becomes a very long flail (remember spiked chain no longer have reach, also: it's a two handed weapon, not exactly perfect) but that art is pretty consistent.

So here's my question then: If I took ewp:nine section whip 9rather than scorpion whip), what could I build?

I posted on an existing thread that my group is planning on playing carrion crown and that a couple members of the group, myself included, want to play castlevania styled characters- castlevania 3 in particular. (it's the one that the most players have tried) One person is playing a daggermaster rogue (His favorite character was Grant Danasty) another player voiced the desire to play a necromancy/undead controller and decided on an oracle of bones and when told about the dhampir race, immediately called dibs. (covering the alucard slot). Another player isn't too familiar with castlevania and is playing a 2h style ranger that hunts undead. The last player (other than myself) hasn't decided yet.

That means I get to play the Belmont! (I'm the biggest castlevania fan in the group by far).

While I am excited by this, there are a few problems- first what class should I use? Ranger is taken, and I like using skills and magic to much to go fighter (I'm playing a fighter in another campaign anyways) so while fighter is an option, I'd really like to consider alternatives. I'm thinking that bard (archaeologist archetype), inquisitor, and magus (bladebound/ kensai-whip focused) are options.

Second, the whip is problematic. It's not really avoidable because a Belmont without a whip isn't much of a Belmont at all. But the whip is still really frustrating. First off, the whole exotic weapon thing- this can be bypassed by being a bard or a kensai magus, and alleviated by fighters, but it really hurts inquisitors. This is made worse by the fact that the whip (scorpion whip is allowable, that solves that problem) isn't really great for offense, at all, and I would like to be able to hold up my end at least. I don't need to be dpr king I just don't want to embarrass myself. Third off, the whip's strength- ranged combat maneuvers, are limiting as CMB is based off BaB- which again hurts most of my options.

So it seems that you can make a character who kick arse with a whip with a fighter, but not be much of a monster hunter. Or I could go with an archaeologist or an inquisitor- both make great hunters (knowledge checks, skills, general tricky flavor) but using a whip would be a serious handicap. A kensai magus gets decent skills and can become a pretty good whip user, but it has a lot of abilities that don't fit a belmont.

So...help? Any advice for taking the whip user and making a vampire killer? Do I need to...dare I say it multiclass? Any build advice is welcome- I know I'm not the first to want to try this concept, and I'd love to see what other people have done.

P.S. I was thinking human for race, but half elf can work well too. Also, we use a really generous rolling method for attributes, so don't worry too much about MAD.

Thanks

Minstrel -

The whip is neat for combat maneuvers, but pretty terrible for actually killing things. The scorpion whip added with Ultimate Combat deals 1d4 lethal damage. Of course, with your self buffs, that may work out fine.

For a more Belmont-y killing weapon, I'd suggest using a flail. That's what the Vampire Killer always upgrades into, anyways.

Lastly, the inquisitor may not necessarily be upset with the necromancer friend. While most of the neutral gods probably don't like undead, some of them may not be terribly upset with them either. An inquisitor of Abadar or Gorum (especially Gorum) may be perfectly happy to look the other way (or even help out with reanimation) while the important prey remains to be hunted.

Actually, I was poking around in Ultimate Combat and noticed the nine-section whip. It actually might be exactly what I need, here's the stats:

Nine-section whip 8 gp 1d6 1d8 19–20/×2 — 3 lbs. B blocking, distracting, monk, trip

It lacks a flail's disarm abilities, but it gains blocking, distracting, and a 19-20 critical range.

The reason is that if I'm spending a feat to gain a weapon (neither the bard nor the inquisitor are proficient with flails) I might as well go exotic.

Thoughts?

So my group recently decided to play this adventure and we're well on our way to building a castlevania party already. I mentioned the possibility to the group and another player instantly called dibs on the Grant Danasty character, as a daggermaster rogue. A second player voiced the opinion of playing a necromancer-style character based on the idea that the campaign will let you take a morally-flexible route through the adventure. He loves oracles so the oracle of bones is a good fit, and upon finding out that there was a dhampir race he snatched it- thus giving us an Alucard analog (not perfect but the class is a good fit for a dhampir).

This is great and all, but of the remaining three players I'm the only one with a love of Castlevainia, leaving The Belmont to me (this isn't a bad thing, I'm kind of excited) but I'm left with a problem. With a necromancer in the party, one that has the intend of raising the dead in fact, and an overall atmosphere off not playing as lawful-good smite them all and let the deities sort them out attitude, my options for playing a Belmont are constricted. Furthermore, I'm not sure how good a whip character really is- there's a lot more support for them now, but they still seem iffy.

So what should I do? Inquisitors seem a bit too zealous to team up with a necromancer, and I'd like to know what a whip can do. I'm considering an archaeologist bard, as I like the high skill character, and I think It could play the investigator role really well- as well as being quite a bit more combat friendly than the archivist and detective archetypes- but is a whip-based bard any good? Is this too Indiana Jones-y?

Thoughts on a Pistolero + Mysterious Stranger build? The two can be used together, and I'm trying to decide whether to take both or just Pistolero.

People avoid this because, while it doesn't say that the Pistolero's Pistol Training replaces Gun training, it obviously does. It's only a matter of time until it is errata'd

Personally I think the way to go with the master of many styles is a dragon/tiger combo.

The second feat in the dragon style chain (Dragon Ferocity) grants you bonus damage to all unarmed attacks equal to half your strength bonus. Combine this with the second tiger style feat (tiger claws) for a massive attack that takes a full-round action (a viable replacement for flurry).

Then add the third feat in the tiger style chain (Tiger Pounce) allows you to penalize AC rather than attack rolls when power attacking and lets you move half your speed each round as a swift action.

I'm thinking we might have something similar to than one scene form Ricky O: the story of Ricky. You know the one. the headsplosion one.

Awesome.

UC really give monks a boost to edge in on the fighter.

For Example:

The second feat in the dragon style chain (Dragon Ferocity) grants you bonus damage to all unarmed attacks equal to half your strength bonus. BAM

The third feat in the tiger style chain (Tiger Pounce) allows you to penalize AC rather than attack rolls when power attacking and lets you move half your speed each round as a swift action.

-Mind you, you can't be in multiple styles at once, so you can't combine those two abilities (unless you are a master of many styles, which gives up flurry.)

Then there is the martial artist, who gives up ki for so, so much more. for example they can take fighter feats, just as long as they apply to monk weapons or unarmed strike. BAM

Minstrelin --

Mithril +5 breastplate offers +11 to AC.

You'll get all but 1 point from your Dex too.

So the Baselines of both would be:

Savage: +21 (as you have it)
Invulnerable: +23 (mithral breastplate instead of bracers of armor)

Adding the class features (or totems):

Savage: +30
Invulnerable: +29

So I'm seeing:

AC 40 and 39.

Now in UC there is the stalwart feat that allows you to turn dodge bonus into DR that stacks with class based DR (and improved Stalwart which allows the amount to go higher) -- with improved Stalwart the invulnerable rager could be looking at DR 22/-

I'm counting the base dexterity of 12 in the first post- boosting the numbers up by one.

Also: 6 levels of martial artist could do a lot: Wisdom (plus 1) to AC, better saves, fast movement +20, evasion, fatigue immunity, and exploit weakness- spend a swift action for a chance to raise my AC by half my monk level against one foe for one round- usable at will? Sign me up!

I know that you wanted to know mid levels but I always like to know the limit's of a build's abilities

I think it's worth noting that the natural armor from the beast totem feats doesn't stack with the savage barbarian's natural armor bonus- which is frustrating. I'd go with invulnerable rager and take the beast totem line. You'll want to stock up on defensive items either way- missing out on armor is something that needs made up for after all. Note- you'll need to wear of physical might, to boost dex as well as str, again to keep up AC.

Here's what 20th level looks like:

+5 ring of protection.............50k gold
+5 amulet of natural armor........50k gold
+8 bracers of armor...............64k gold
+6 belt of physical might.........90k gold

for a total of +21 AC............154k gold

that's the base line, either archetype can make use of that AC.

the invulnerable rager adds DR10/- (DR12/- if you spend the rage powers to boost it) and +6 natural armor from beast totem.

the savage barbarian adds no DR(DR2/- if you spend the rage powers), +3 dodge bonus, and +5 natural armor bonus (if you take the beast totem you can instead take the +6 natural armor from the rage power)

Now, using your stats that gives us (including the -2 penalty to AC from raging):

Invulnerable Rager: DR12/-, AC 36, Flat Footed 32, Touch 19

Savage Barbarian: DR2/-, AC 41, Flat footed 32, Touch 24

Invulnerabe Rager with +5 mithral breastplate (costing 29,350 gold for a +5 breastplate, or 104,350 for a +10- either one gives the same AC bonus)

DR12/-, AC 40, Flat Footed 38, Touch 19

So, yes at high levels the Savage Rager does pay out, even with the totem not stacking, but it's not easy getting there. I'd say that by level 10 you're character should be good to play, but those low levels (1-5) will be rough.

From this article:

"What do you wanna be?" I motioned towards Soren who, until now, had been rapidly and lustily texting without pause.

"I don't know, dead? Can we just call me dead, and all of you guys will mourn? Your little fantasy wives will weep for the secret love they've harbored in their hearts that died with me, and I can leave here to go make tender but vigorous love to a disinherited Hungarian countess."
"No, you have to pick a class," I responded unevenly. I had already cycled through Independence Day and was on to Lost World-era Goldblum now; I was quickly running out of quality Goldblum roles.
"Fine. Which one's the best guy?"
"There is no best guy," Dan interjected, "every class has its own unique skills and specialties that make them invaluable to the group."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I've seen Care Bears, Dan: We're all special in our own way. But which one's the best guy? If this was a football team, who's the quarterback? Who takes all the girls to the parking lot during fifth period and bangs them in the passenger seat of a Cherry Red Trans Am?"
"Paladin," Dan admitted.
Soren gave a quick thumbs-up and went back to his phone.
"Which one's the guy that gets the girl Soren's done with?" Michael asked, "the one that swoops in there afterward, really exploits the emotional weakness of her recent rejection, and gets her to do the weird stuff?"
"Rogue," Dan answered again. Each word from him had a little less joy in it.

Though, a bard can easily pull off rogue tricks.

I would take the following schools as opposition schools:

1) Necromancy
2) Enchantment
3) Divination (i know i don't want to either but i have no other choice)
4) Illusion (i hate the fact that i am doing but i don't want to give up transmutation).

If i was to went and pick the opposition research arcane discovery i would probably bring back either necromancy or enchantement.

I would rather get rid of abjuration and keep necromancy myself, spells like fear, ray of enfeeblement, ray of exhaustion, and enervation all either benefit from the boost to save DC's, the boost to accuracy, or both.

I like the guide, thanks for putting this up.

Don't own UC, and unfortunately wont for quite a while, so maybe this should be more obvious than it is...but I'm curious on why there is no mention of pepper boxes in the pistolero talk? Wouldn't a pair of pepper boxes eliminate (partially) the need for the off hand to reload?

NO, unlike the revolver, the pepperbox's chambers don't rotate on their own. You need a free hand to rotate it. No real gain, as long as you can load as a free action, there isn't much point to the pepperbox.

Just finished Dance this morning--I estimate it took me around 50 hours of reading. To all of you who read it in a couple days: you are gods among men, and I have absolutely no understanding of how you pulled it off, but bravo-bravo.

It's a combination of fast reading speed, speed reading tricks, and not sleeping.

I just want to try out a strength-stacking, Dragon-style Martial Artist with Greater Weapon Spec.

I WILL PUNCH YOUR FACE OFF!

Now i just need a bard and Medusa's Wrath!

I need to play this character.

I'm pretty sure It can combine with other archetypes.

I could be wrong but I think the Drunken Master, Hungry Ghost Monk, Ki Mystic, Monk of the Lotus, and Monk of the Sacred Mountain all can. The only abilities the MoMS changes are the bonus feats, flurry and perfect self.

But here's the thing, it doesn't only reduce number of attacks but also attack accuracy- it loses a lot and to be honest, a lot of the styles work really well with flurry (dragon, boar...)

As for feats a monk gets 17 feats total, a human one would get 18... not looking good at all to be honest- especially because you will probably want to take elemental fist as one of those three...

Honestly a gestalt unarmed fighter/ master of many forms would be dynamite.

Most amazing link you'll ever click on.

Be ready for intense laughter! (if you have a condition that forbids laughter, don't click)

I want to play this game. I really do.

One of the things I was looking forward to the most in Ultimate Combat was the fighting styles- which turned out to be several three-feat-chains, which is nice, in fact they're pretty great. Not all of them are as good as each other (dragon is amazing, snapping turtle is meh) but the are a very cool addition and in fact help the monk out a good bit.

As I was looking through the monk archetypes (overall pretty good- the martial artist should be really, really effective, and the sohei has potential) I was pleased there was a master of many styles- after all I like the styles and stances, I should like the archetype right?

Here's the basic idea- you get to take the style feats in lieu of normal monk bonus feats- cool, that's fine. And you get to use more than one stance at a time (each style give several benefits that can only be used or active while the user is in that style's stance- you can't get the crane's defenses at the same time as the dragon's damage bonuses for example) at level one you can be in two stances, at level eight you can have three, at level fifteen you can have four, and at level twenty you can have five. Awesome, that seems to be exactly what you'd want for a master of many styles...but...

But you give up flurry of blows.

I don't think I need to explain how big of a hit that is to a monk-but is it worth it? Can a master of many styles be viable? Or should I stick to a different kind of monk and just take the feats when I can?

Wow, just finished A dance with dragons- it took me two days, which is a long time for me.

Thoughts: I only started reading The Song of Ice and Fire books this year, so I haven't been waiting seven years for this one, making my point of view a little different than someone who has.

I liked it a lot. It's not perfect, it's clearly a middle book, in that not a whole lot gets resolved. The Author mention some problems with the timeline he had to fix in this book, so some of the plots... meander a bit.

But it's still very good, it has some of my favorite moments in it. My only real frustration is that one of the main protagonists plots ends in a gut-wrenching cliffhanger. Which makes sense because this is George R. R. Martin we're dealing with.

I just reread the John Carter of Mars trilogy (first three books) and I've got to say I just keep loving these books more and more. Sure the plot is silly, the gender issues are painful, but man, they just pull me in and hold me. It makes me want to run a campaign based on it.

Currently I'm waiting to receive my copy of "A Dance with Dragons" in the mail. I'm beginning to lose it.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

As for the nudity thing- the story doesn't need an R rating, and a two hour movie where every single character is naked in every scene would be kind of distracting.

Who said anything about every character?

The book.

Oh, wait... I see what you're getting at.

It honestly doesn't look to bad to me, I only just read the books last month and the timing for this is amazing for me.

As for the nudity thing- the story doesn't need an R rating, and a two hour movie where every single character is naked in every scene would be kind of distracting. Remember showgirls?

That and the actual plot could make for a fairly good family movie so a PG13 rating is kind of where it should be. I'm thinking they're attempting to do something alongside the Pirates of the Caribbean movie (remember the first one was actually really fun- it's the sequels that ruin it).

Oh? As for the red skin? look up the Tracy Lords princess of mars movie- red skin looks like sunburn- the reddish tan with the henna is fine.

So, I'm looking forward to it, Willem Defoe is playing Tars Tarkas, so it should be cool.

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

You know, what Neil Gaiman writes.

I'm partial towards his Evil Twin, myself, but it's always a very close call.

As for Lynch-ing up your campaign: First, stick to early Twin Peaks stuff. Second, take a gander at the random, out-of-place things he slides in. Stuff you look at and think "what the heck is this, and why's he showing it?". Your Sorc ideas are good. Illusion stuff would also be good. I always felt his work was more bizarre than anything else, but he made it work. None of the characters seemed to be "right in the head". He kept you guessing. I'd suggest bards and witches would be two good classes. I'd also suggest out-of-the-norm characters: Good-aligned trolls or orcs, fey-touched dwarves, and other things one wouldn't expect.

'Course, those are my thoughts. Take 'em with a grain of pie. :)

Evil twin?

While I do agree his work is incredibly bizarre, you can't really deny the creepiness factor- it's never just weird, it's usually creepy too.

He doesn't have power attack though.

Sure he does- at level one no less.

I have to second furious focus, and take it early!

A long-standing (but somewhat dormant) threat in my long-running campaign is that of the fey. I always liked the idea of old fashioned fairy tales, not the romantic nonsense of Tinkerbell-style chaotic good Disney stuff, but rather the older folklore born from long winter nights.

You know, what Neil Gaiman writes.

Now, it's not that I'm lacking in inspiration, I mentioned Neil Gaiman, but I'm also drawing from Mike Mignola, Lovecraft, Guillermo del Toro, and Changeling: the Lost. This should be painting a clear picture.

Now recently I started watching Twin Peaks (I watched the whole first season in on sitting- I can't recommend it) and really enjoyed it- the only thing I'd seen of his before was Easerhead, which I like more thinking back, the actual watching of the particular film was rather unpleasant. I realized that Lynch's signature style was a rather good fit for what I wanted out of a fey-themed adventure.

So, can anyone help me bring the Lynch? Not just thematically, are there any mechanics I need to jump on for this any classes villians will need to take to really be able to create that strange feeling of dread needed? I'm thinking sorcerers have a lot of potential- aberrant, protean, starsoul, dreamspun and shadow especially. I might need to use the crossblooded archetype to get what I need.

Thoughts?

Just so you know, touch spells always could critical, it's not unique to the magus.

Touch: You must touch a creature or object to affect it. A touch spell that deals damage can score a critical hit just as a weapon can. A touch spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit. Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell. If the spell allows you to touch targets over multiple rounds, touching 6 creatures is a full-round action.

The difference is that a magus' weapon determines the threat range of the critical, making scimitars and rapiers very attractive.