Just in case anyone missed it, This thread has been REVIVEDTWICE within the last couple of months after a 9 year hiatus. It's totally fine if people want to continue the thread, just making sure people aren't replying to someone who's no longer even here and expecting a reply.
As far as Paladins of Cayden Cailean [[c](or similar)[/ooc], while the Paladins themselves have to be LG alignment, there is no stipulation in the Paladin class (or anywhere else in the rules that I know of) that a Paladin must be within 1 step of their chosen deity. The requirement that a Divine class must be within 1 step of their deity is present in the CLERIC, INQUISITOR and WARPRIEST classes but does not appear anywhere in the Paladin class.
Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
I believe Paizo made it a requirement for Organised play that any Divine caster had to be within 1 step of their deity, but to my knowledge they never actually made that change to the rules of the game itself.
There are also now Paladin archetypes that allow for non LG Paladins as noted above), and archetypes from other classes that give paladin-like abilities (eg. the CHAMPION OF THE FAITH Warpriest), but beyond that remember that this is a game. If you have an idea for a character that doesn't quite fit within the rules then talk to you GM about how to make it. When I introduced some of my friends to DnD3.5 back in the day I played a Chaotic-Good Paladin. The GM and I intentionally made this technically-illegal character to show the other players (who were all new to the game) that one of the big advantages of a Tabletop RPG over something like a computer game is that we can bend the rules to make the game fit our purposes. That character is still one of the most memorable PCs I've played.
Obviously this is the Rules forum so telling people "Just ignore the rules if it doesn't suit you" isn't really the answer people are looking for, but I do think allowing for some creative interpretations is one of the biggest draw-cards of TTRPGs. If we're talking RAW then as I said the Paladin doesn't have to worship a Deity within 1 step.
INVESTIGATOR would work for a TWF build. You'd probably want Weapon Finesse and the TWF feats (TWF, ITWF, maybe GTWF or Two-Weapon-Rend) but other than that you don't really need any other feats because you get so many bonuses from your class. You'll want the Quick Study and Combat Inspiration talents, and the INSPIRED weapon property on at least one of your weapons (you probably only need it on one). If you wanted to min-max things take the Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration talents and be a Half-Elf for the Favoured Class Bonus (+1/4 to Inspiration rolls), it doesn't seem like a lot but by level 9 when you get an Inspired weapon you should have Amazing Inspiration and +2 from your FCB for +1d8+2 (~+6.5) to all Inspiration rolls, and when you use that on an Attack roll you'd get double that number (~+13) to damage. That on top of the +4/+4 from Studied Combat and +3d6 from Studied Strike means you'll be hitting basically every hit, and the last attack of the round you can add Inspiration to have it be more accurate than your first attack and add ~+24 damage if it hits. You'll be the king of skills because no other class even comes close to the Investigator and you'll have extracts for utility as well. For archetypes, a lot of people love the Empiricist but I think they're just making you better at things you already do well. I actually recommend the LAMPLIGHTER if you want to make the most of your Inspiration rolls, or if you DON'T go with Half-Elf then I recommend the GRAVEDIGGER for some fun flavour and interesting powers (The Gravedigger gives alternate uses for Inspiration, and while they're good they wouldn't benefit from the Half-Elf FCB, so if you're going to invest in that then I'd go with something that makes use of that bonus like the Lamplighter).
Alternatively the WARPRIEST. If you go for a Human Warpriest and take the Human FCB (+1/6 of a bonus feat) then you end up with only 1 less feat than the Fighter. This means you could go for all kinds of fun extras to make Daggers more fun (eg. Improved Snap Shot to make AoOs at reach with your daggers). The Warpriest gets bigger damage dice which means you're not stuck with d4s, but you also get a ton of great self-buffs to add to your attack and damage rolls, and other combat utility. For out of combat utility you have 6th level spells and some Blessing (Domain) powers. Your skills won't be high, it's 2/level from class but Humans get +1 per level and if you can get 12 INT you can add another +1. You also get enough feats that you could swap out the bonus feat for the Focused Study alternative racial trait (Skill Focus at levels 1, 8 and 16) which is worth another 18 skill points when you max it out. I would personally take the MOLTHUNI ARSENAL CHAPLAIN archetype for the bonus to accuracy (and the bonus damage will scale better than the increased dice-size from regular Warpriest), but it does limit you to 1 Blessing and you don't get to choose your blessing, so if you wanted more flexibility there then I'd just go straight Warpriest with no archetype. The Arsenal Chaplain also unlocks Advanced Weapon Training feats which can be really good (eg. Ricochet Toss to go with Improved Snap Shot), but you don't need the archetype for that, you can take a feat to get Advanced Weapon Training. Oh an Pharasma's Deific Obedience boon gives a +2 Sacred bonus to hit with daggers which is pretty nice.
Those are the 2 TWF builds I've thought about building in the past. The Investigator is pretty straightforward, you just want to hit as many times as possible. The Warpriest doesn't have as many skills, but it can really make the most of the strengths of the Dagger (aside from the low damage it has a reasonable critical-hit range, it has variable damage-types, it's a light weapon that can be used well for TWF and it can also be used as a thrown weapon). So it depends how far you want to go with the weapons vs the skills. Both classes have excellent utility spells and such, so either one will be fine for that, both in and out of combat.
Or it maybe could be the other way around, the intent could be for the item to NOT 'stack' with itself and rely on combos with your teammates instead (and stupefied is not hard to apply, there are spells and probably abilities). And I don't have the impression that crit effects are generally very long in the the system. So until the end of your next turn looks more likely.
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I think it would be very odd if this were not intended to stack with itself. Enemy takes "Status X", or if they already have "Status X" then add "Status Y". That really feels intentional. It would also be very unusual for a crit effect to rely on something that cones from another player. It's also worth noting that Stupified and Frightened are both Status penalties, so stacking these 2 effects does not give the enemy a -3 to will saves.
Having said that, I don't know how it relates to durations. "Until the end of your next turn" and "1 minute" are both fairly common with crit effects. I thought it might scale with your weapon potency rune or striking rune, but I'm not really sure there's precedent for that.
I'm appreciating the discussion everyone, thanks. My game is on Tuesday night and we're taking on the quest-boss so I'll try to think of how it should go by then.
This Item may contain spoilers from the Seven Dooms for Sandpoint Adventure Path
Legacy Content
Uncommon Enchantment Magical
Source Pathfinder #200: Seven Dooms for Sandpoint pg. 185
Price 250 gp
Usage etched onto a weapon
Bulk —
A nightmare rune creates minor phantasmal alterations to a weapon's appearance so that those who look upon it see subtle reminders of their deepest fears. An arachnophobe might interpret the cross guard of a nightmare longsword to look like curving, twitching spider legs, for example, while someone who's afraid of sickness might see a nightmare club as a diseased length of bone crawling with flies. These images are all in the mind of the observer, but they also infuse the weapon with additional power. When you hit with a nightmare weapon, add 1d6 mental damage to the damage dealt. In addition, on a critical hit, the target becomes stupefied 1 by overwhelming visions in their mind of personal horrors that linger. If you critically hit a creature that's already stupefied, it becomes frightened 2 as well. These critical hit effects have the emotion, fear, and mental traits.
Activate 10 minutes (envision, Interact); Frequency once per day; Effect The nightmare weapon casts nightmare to your specifications.
Conditions are persistent. Whenever you're affected by a condition, its effects last until the condition's stated duration ends, the condition is removed, or terms dictated in the condition itself cause it to end.
It's from an Adventure path so it probably just didn't get vetted as thoroughly as it should have been, but obviously a permanent Stupified coming from a 250gp weapon rune seems a bit overpowered. Does anyone have any thoughts on how long this should last?
I'm actually not Too worried about the Stupified condition itself but I've built my character around making use of the Frightened condition and this seemed like a good way to potentially keep a tough enemy Frightened if I can land a second crit (I'm a Rogue with the DREAD STRIKER feat and I have a DREAD RUNE on my armour). Stupified is of course a good condition to add as well, but for me I'm wondering how long the "if you crit they're Frightened 2" condition lasts.
If there isn't a rule, what would you think is reasonable? Number of rounds equal to the number of damage dice? Or weapon potency rune? 1 minute? Until combat ends? Forever until you find a healer? I dunno, just thought I'd see what people think (unless I'm missing something and there is a rule that I've missed).
Splitting Mutagen, I can take it, "An alchemist must be at least 12th level before he can select this discovery". I take it at level 14 = 2 MC + 12 Alchemist. So it's OK ? No ?
Yes, that works.
Oh right. Yeah I misread your levels, my bad. You can absolutely take it.
Dragofr wrote:
I will think about 1 MC at level 7.
Just clarifying, you can't take 1 level of MC until level 8 (you have to already be able to cast 3rd level Extracts before you take the prestige class). Also it's not Mandatory to take that 1 level early, I just think it's the way I'd do it. You get more uses of your Mutagen per day, which is important for such a Mutagen-heavy build. But see how you go, if most adventuring days get the adventuring done within an hour, or if you have an hour between encounters to make a new one, or if you just don't feel the need to use a Mutagen in every combat then you don't need to worry avout it.
Ah, the main thing I can think of is that I would take 1 level of Master Chymist (MC) as soon as possible. You get a lot from your Mutagens, so having the ability to use them more often is pretty powerful, powerful enough to push back your other abilities by 1 level in my opinion. So it'd be A-7/MC-1/A-3/MC-9. Of course by the time you get to level 8 you'll have a pretty good idea of how much you might need the extra Mutagenic transformations to get through an adventuring day, if you've been managing without them then getting to Beastmorph-10 is the priority.
Just a note: the Bone-Spike Mutagen giving better Natural Armour is great, but the "Armour Spikes" it provides won't mesh well with your Natural Attack build. If you make a full attack and include both Manufactured weapons (which the Armour Spikes count as) and Natural Attacks then ALL of your Natural Attacks will count as Secondary Natural Attacks. You've taken Multiattack whoch reduces the Penalty to hit, but Natural Attacks also only deal 1/2 STR damage (and Power Attack), so it'll likely reduce your damage output if you use them. If you just want them for the AC bonus and because they're "cool" then absolutely, go for it. But if you're planning to attack with them then they won't mesh with the rest of the build.
You've taken the Wings Discovery at level 6, but the Beastform Mutagen acts like BEAST SHAPE I at level 6, and gives you a fly speed of 30. Later at level 10 your Mutagens act as Beast Form II which grants a fly speed of 60 with Good maneuverability (+4 to Fly checks). Now there IS a reason you might want both, the Wings discovery grants a 60 foot fly speed at level 6 (instead of 10), they're an Extraordinary Ability (instead of a Supernatural Ability), they don't "take up" your Mutagenic Form abilities [ooc(meaning you could add a Swim speed or Pounce or whatever more easily)[/ooc], and the Wings act like the Fly spell. The grear thing the Fly spell does is that it gives you a bonus to Fly checks equal to half your level (plus "Good" maneuverability gives you another +4). So if you DO want the Wings discovery I recommend ignoring Skill Focus: Fly(EDIT: I just noticed you need that for the Powerful Wings discovery, I guess it's a feat tax but you'll still want it).
I actually think Fast Bombs is still good on a Melee Alchemist. You can throw a few bombs in round 1 then charge into the fray. You don't really need it early, but you could swap it for the Bone-Spike Mutagen or something?
Splitting Mutagen - you can't use it. You can add your Alchemist and MC levels together when choosing Master Chymist discoveries, but that does not work both ways. You only ever count as a 10th level Alchemist as far as Alchemist Discoveries are concerned. I'd look at some of the MC discoveries to see what you might like, some of them are pretty good.
The only problem is that enlarge person is a one-round cast and since it's not touch or personal you can't even use it with greater bloodrage.
I always pack a couple of potions of Enlarge Person on melee characters. Potions are a move to retrieve (assuming you have a Handy Haversack or somesuch) and a Standard to drink. It still takes you out of the combat for a round, but A) You get the benefits of reach instantly, rather than on the following turn, and B) You finish the spell instantly which means you can do other things between turns if something comes up. Obviously pre-buffing with spell-slots is better, but for when you need Enlarge and you didn't have to prebuff, potions are your friend (Extracts are even better since they ignore the move action to retrieve, but obviously that's fairly niche).
Liliyashanina wrote:
Enlarge person is hopefully a prebuff cast from an ally.
I had (with elephant in the room active), an Abyssal Bloodrager who went into whirlwind attack (which is far far more practical with EITR, as its just dodge + mobility as one feat, spring attack and then whirlwind attack).
Due to Abyssal, he autoenlarged, and at level 7 he had his thing going.
Looking back:
--Should have made him an Urban Bloodrager, for the cast bladed dash as part of your greater bloodrage thing
--Stagger proof boots are your friend before greater bloodrage
--the difference between 15 feet reach and 20 feet reach was often significant (I got good value out of lunge), the difference between 20 and 25 feet less so.
--I picked spring attack into whirlwind over a cleave build because the spring attack with reach is amazing in a "duel" (he fought a couple against Paladins), even more so if you have a movespeed advantadge.
Yeah I just finished a campaign with an ABERRANT BLOODRAGER. Toward the end my go-to strategy was to cast LONG ARM as part of Greater bloodrage, then cast MONSTROUS PHYSIQUE II to transform into a GUG(Large creature with 15 foot natural reach), and when you combine that with Aberrant Reach from my bloodline I had 25 foot natural reach. I could make AoOs on pretty much anyone on the battlefield.
Even though I played this character from 1 to 19, and even though I had this crazy reach, I can count on my fingers the number of times I got more than 2 AoOs in a round. When it happened it was glorious (7 AoOs at my peak, completely shut down the encounter), but it's fairly rare. I ended up not going for the best options to make use of that reach though because I think my GM would have flipped the table =P
I used Lunge a bit, but I found that Lunge is mostly only useful when your reach is exactly 5 feet longer or shorter than your opponents' reach. If it's 5 feet shorter it allows you to approach them and attack without provoking an AoO, and if it's 5 feet longer then you can approach and attack them, and they're still too far to just 5-foot-step in to attack you. This means they have to move, which means they don't get their full attack and you get an AoO as they move in. But it's fairly niche unless you're fighting a lot of enemies of a particular size (eg. medium character with a reach weapon and Lunge fighting medium sized enemies). If you are facing a lot of enemies of that size then it's a really good feat, but if you have 15-20 foot reach already it's unlikely that Lunge will really make the difference that often.
The real benefit of that excessive reach was Threatening those AoOs. If I stand in front of my party then the enemy has a choice between attacking me or attacking my allies. If they attack me then great (I'm the tanky front-liner), but if they want to attack my allies they have to make another choice: Walk through my threatened space and take a hit, or walk around, and probably take longer to get to my allies. With a 10 foot reach you can do this fairly well, but with 20+ foot reach the choice isn't just an extra action, it's an entire extra round or two to get past me if they don't want to provoke. So it basically removed the option of going around.
I really enjoyed it as a playstyle, but you have to make yourself as tanky as possible - I spent a LOT of the first 7 or so levels going unconscious most combats.
So the thing about Gunslingers is that once you hit level 5 you're already the best damage-dealer in the game. You hit Touch AC and you get DEX-to-damage, so although you can't quite do the Barbarian damage numbers you'll basically never miss, which means your overall damage output will be incredibly high. This is why people tend to multiclass after level 5, because more levels in Gunslinger doesn't really give you anything that other classes can't give you. What the Gunslinger is missing is skill points and utility options.
For that reason, adding something like Fighter for Weapon Training is probably unnecessary. Now don't get me wrong, if you really want to deal the most damage ever, or if the character concept you're going for is a hyper-focused gun-warrior then yeah, Fighter or more Gunslinger are going to get that done. But Weapon Training (for example) is giving you a bonus to hit that you don't need, and while the bonus damage will add up, it's already something you're amazing at.
So the most common suggestion I see for Gunslinger is the INQUISITOR. It has 3/4 BAB, 2 good saves, 6/9 casting 6/level skills (including a bunch of new class skills for you) and some really good WIS synergy (you don't just get WIS to spells and deeds, you also get to add your WIS to knowledge checks to identify monsters and to Initiative checks). Finally, the Inquisitor gets some combat buffs that are Swift actions, which means they don't interfere with your ability to full-attack, which is what every Gunslinger wants to be doing.
There are other classes that do a lot of what the Inquisitor does but usually they don't quite have that whole package - they cover some, but not all of the Gunslinger's weaknesses (eg. the WARPRIEST has WIS-casting and swift-action buffs but only has 2 skill points per level). You could also look at non-WIS classes, eg. the ALCHEMIST has lots of nice buffs for a Warpriest, including a Mutagen that can get your DEX to truly ludicrous heights. If you are interested in multiclassing with non-WIS classes, a 1 level dip into another class with Panache/Grit/Luck could give you more Grit based on another stat, eg. the INSPIRED BLADE Swashbuckler gives you INT+CHA to Panache, which would stack with the Grit from Gunslinger and let you choose which mental stat you want to focus on (see the note at the bottom of THIS ARCHETYPE to understand how these stack).
So yeah, my advice would be to go for something that gives you that utility, in and out of combat. The easiest way to do that is to take a casting class, most of the 6/9 casters have a lot of utility to spare. If you wanted something without spellcasting the Monk would be pretty good, the Brawler is great on any martial, or even take a look at the non-casting archetypes of the 6/9 classes (I know Bard and Investigator have some non-casting archetypes, eg. the link above for how Panache and Grit stacks is a non-casting Investigator).
I think the INVESTIGATOR is one of the most accurate classes in the game. They're only 3/4 BAB, but they get a scaling bonus to-hit equal to half their level, which means their final class bonus to hit is +25 (equivalent to a Fighter with maxed out Weapon Training). On top of that they have access to Heroism, Mutagens and other accuracy buffs. Also since they're getting a big chunk of damage from Studied Combat/Studied Strike, they're often better off not using feats like Power Attack, which means that unlike the Fighter they're probably not taking that penalty to hit. Oh yeah, and the Combat Inspiration talent (and later Greater Combat Inspiration) means they can be even more accurate when they want to, and hit harder with the INSPIRED weapon property is pretty ludicrous.
If you really want to max out an Investigator's attack bonuses, play a Half-Elf. Their Favoured Class Bonus (+1/4 to Inspiration rolls) doesn't sound that amazing, but I did a breakdown of how good it gets a few years ago in THIS THREAD, by 9th level it's great, and by 13th level it's actually phenomenal.
Gunslingers and Bomber-Alchemists target Touch AC, and both naturally have high attack bonuses as well, meaning by level 10 or so they should be hitting on a 2+ with even their lowest attacks.
The UNCHAINED MONK doesn't have in-class accuracy boosters like the Fighter or Slayer, but their Flurry of Blows is an extra full-BAB attack, and at level 11 they get a second bonus attack. They can also spend Ki to get another full-BAB attack, so a Hasted 11th level Unchained monk can make 5 full-BAB attacks (plus 2 iterative attacks) in a round if they want to. Even without accuracy boosters your chance to hit is pretty amazing.
Speaking of Fighters, the MOLTHUNI ARSENAL CHAPLAIN Warpriest basically makes the base fighter obsolete. You get a lower BAB, but you can more-than make up for that with spells, and you can get full Weapon Training with as many weapons as you want (Any and all weapons that you take the Weapon Focus feat for).
Oh, a Magus gets TWF with 1 weapon, as well as a bunch of buffs to improve their accruacy. You can also take SPELL PERFECTION and Quicken Spell at high levels to have essentially 6 attacks per round, 4 of which are essentially at high level. Or instead of that extra attack from a quickened spell you could take the Accurate Strike arcana and target Touch AC like the Gunslingers and Alchemists.
Beyond that you can also look at different combat styles to see how to land the most attacks.
Archery is good because Manyshot and Rapid Shot provide bonus attacks at (basically) your full bonus, and since you don't need to move to full-attack you're likely to make more attacks than anyone else, and therefore hit more often than anyone else.
The Warpriest does get master Strike proficiency at a later level, though ...
Yeah but not before level 17, which is where our campaign ends.
Teridax wrote:
and while your Battle Harbinger may be hitting Strikes at a decent rate, their Strike damage will suck
Yeah I'm recommending something like the Champion archetype with BESPELL STRIKES to give him a little more porential damage. I don't think he'll mind too much if he's not contributing as much damage if he's also giving everyone in the party a decent buff.
Khefer wrote:
Just a reminder, a Battle Harbinger is still a Cleric! You access all the Cleric feats on top of the Battle Harbinger ones.
At lvl. 16 (just two levels away), there's the Eternal Bless/Bane feats which lets you have a perma-Bless/Bane active. (Though, I don't think Tandem Onslaught or Empowered Onslaught boosts those, it's still convenient.)
You could pair it with a round 1 casting of Malediction.
Thanks. I did start looking at them but I hadn't got up to that one yet. That honestly sounds pretty rad.
Yeah I think Eternal Blessing sounds better than Etenal Bane because the offensive auras (Bane, Malediction) really want that sustain action to force more saves. Cool option to potentially have more buffs going on, shame about the max 15 foot aura.
Bluemagetim wrote:
Ive done this comparison before and posted it in a different thread.
Cool, thanks for the breakdown.
I think between our debuffs and his own buff (and I'm going to try to have my Rogue aid him early each fight) we should be able to get a crit most combats, and that first crit has a reasonable chance to help snowball us into higher bonuses.
As Teridax said, it's important to temper expectations, but I think it'll be fun, interesting and occasionally he'll feel like a total badass.
Eh, I think you're over-hyping the negatives a bit much.
You just showed that against an APL+3 enemy he'll still have a ~1/3 chance to get a crit within the first 2 rounds of attacking. Even if he doesn't get any crits he'll still be hitting just as often as anyone else while providing the entire party with a small but meaningful boost. And while a Warpriest could do the buffing, they wouldn't have that full martial weapon proficiency that he wants.
As I said, the expectation isn't to get to +3 or +4 every combat, but even +2s are pretty decent, and should happen fairly regularly.
I know it's not game-breaking or anything, but I think it's decent.
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it is important to temper your expectations, and be prepared for those encounters where your engine doesn't even go above +1.
I do appreciate the sentiment though. I'll do my best to help him achieve those crits (my Rogue will be legendary in Athletics by level 15 so I should be able to give a reliable +4 at least once per combat) but tempering expectations is important to game enjoyment as well.
1) The battle font spells are OK, but not great. The biggest advantage is that you don't have to spend an action to sustain them, only if you want to increase the emanation. I also agree that attempting to have multiple auras active at the same time is probably not worth it until 20th level with Live the Creed (and some retraining of earlier feats).
100% agree. When I first read this archetype I was unimpressed. A regular Warpriest, or even a Fighter with the Cleric dedication could have more instances of Bless by this point in the game.
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2) Because of the limited spell slots, feats like Intimidating Strike (impose the frightened status on a successful Strike) and Bespell Strikes (extra damage on a strike after casting a spell) will be extremely useful to either conserve spells and/or gain an added benefit when a spell is cast.
We already have 2 PCs taking Intimidate feats, and my Rogue has a Moderate DREAD RUNE on her armour, so that might be covered. That said, it probably doesn't hurt to have another, Intimidation is pretty good in this system.
Also I completely agree about Bespell Strike. I'm trying to encourage him to take something like the Champion archetype for the Focus spell. Focus spells are "Non-Cantrip Spells", and combining that with Double-Slice makes Bespell Weapon even more awesome. The only thing that keeps it from being S-tier is that Achaekek has the Harm font, so a Champion in his service would have Touch of the Void rather than Lay On Hands. Still pretty great though, and Touch of the Void isn't an "Attack" spell so it still pairs well with Double Slice.
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3) Creed Magic is pretty much a must have, IMO.
100% agree.
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4) Harbinger's Armament and Greater Armament are solid choices to make a primary magic weapon "better."
Yeah I looked at them. How do they work with DOUBLING RINGS(the level 11 version)? I wasn't totally sold on those feats just because he's going the TWF route, but I guess even without that it's still pretty good. If it does work with the Doubling Rings then that's just dandy!
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5) Frankly, I'm always a bit leery of feats like Empowered Onslaught that only trigger on a critical hit (either by or against the character) because they are less "reliable" than other options.
Yeah I get it. I answered a lot of concerns in the post above, but I think the expectations have been set at a reasonable level. If he's giving everyone a +2 bonus most combats I think he'll be happy, and when it does go off and gets to +3 or +4 it'll be like Christmas.
I'd be careful with Empowered Onslaught, as in my experience I found it a bit of a trap feat: the Battle Harbinger may have a martial class's proficiency track, but they still have a Wisdom key attribute, so their Strikes aren't the most accurate.
Yeah, I think this level-range somewhat solves that though. At level 14 they'll be 1 behind on their to-hit, but 15-17 they'll be on-par with most martials.
Also we currently have 2 PCs with focusing on Intimidation and 2 PCs who have the GANG UP feat, so he should be able to target enemies at -3AC fairly reliably. Between that and the +1 from Bless he should have a reasonable crit-chance.
On top of that, we're playing Prey For Death and we're almost all taking the DUAL-WEAPON WARRIOR archetype for DOUBLE SLICE so he should get 2 chances at that crit most rounds.
I basically set the expectation that we'll probably get a +2 most combats (equivalent to 6th level Heroism), and +3 occasionally (equivalent to 9th level Heroism), and if we ever see a +4 it'll be awesome. So he's not expecting the huge numbers, but it at least feels like it's adding something to the party while still being a Martial chassis with a few high level spells.
I think it'll be an interesting take on a Cleric that we haven't seen before, and it'll offer enough goodies that I don't think he'll be upset that he took it. He's even said he finds it interesting that the best tactic is for him to go mook-hunting to build up that Aura before turning to the boss, so he seems like he's on board with the playstyle.
The main thing as I said is the action economy. I was really hoping there was something to help, because if he starts a combat without his weapons drawn that's ~5 actions just to get rolling (Bless, draw 2 weapons, move in to engage). I think the Dual-Weapon Warrior's action compression feats like Quick Draw and Dual-Weapon Blitz will come in handy to help him actually contribute some damage by the 2nd round. I was really hoping ZEALOUS RUSH would work for him, but it's worded just perfectly to not work with Auras =P ... oh well.
I think it's worth noting that pretty much any other Cleric, past a certain point, can easily have as many 1st-rank aura spells prepared as a Battle Harbinger, if not more, and as you point out 5-6 aura spells is probably going to be a bit much already if you're only using one per combat.
Yeah 100%. They'll have more than enough per day, and a regular Cleric would have that many too. The thing that brought me back round on this archetype is the EMPOWERED ONSLAUGHT feat. This honestly makes this a phenomenal archetype. The problem is that it doesn't come online until level 12, but since we're playing a capaign that starts at level 14 ...
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You can try using two, but that's going to take up a lot of actions, and may not necessarily make the fullest use of the Battle Harbinger's own benefits, which is to use their Strikes and archetype-specific feats to automatically Sustain and possibly improve their auras.
Yeah that's exactly what prompted me to make this thread. They get something at level 20, but until then it's totally not worth 2 auras most combats.
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I do recommend seeing for yourself how the class plays out, but depending on what you're aiming for there may be better alternatives for deploying multiple useful emanations.
I'm sure there will be one or two scenarios where an extra round of buffing will be hlepfil, but understanding that the action economy doesn't really support that helps set those expectations.
Yeah I read further and found Live the Creed after I posted, but sadly our campaign won't go that high so it's not something that's applicable for this character.
I do understand that using multiple Auras in 1 combat means we'd have fewer for the rest of the day, but at the level-range for this campaign he'll have 5-6 Auras per day. Even if we were having 6 combats in a day, having the choice to use 2 in 1 combat at the cost of having none in a later combat could be an interesting choice. However spending 4 actions getting Auras running is a hefty price to pay.
I guess it's still an option, and I guess it's a choice he might make, we'll see.
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I hope your group likes Prey for Death. I've run it, and my group really liked it.
I think we're all looking forward to it. It's something a bit different to what we've run before =)
Hiya gang. We're due to start a new high level campaign in a couple of weeks - PREY FOR DEATH(L14 - L17 Assassins campaign - NO SPOILERS) - and I'm helping one of the other guys build a Battle Harbinger.
The first part (which might be a rules question I guess, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "No" so we can move on) is whether there's an in-class way to cast your Battle Auras using less than 2 actions? I haven't played Cleric that much, but I couldn't see anything obvious for this.
Now assuming there isn't a way to do that, are there any other ways to 1-action cast your auras? There seem to be a bunch of feats and things that let the Harbinger sustain 2 Auras. While that's cool the idea of spending 4 actions to buff up before you really start fighting seems like it's probably not the best, and so not worth investing in those feats. But if there is a way (or I just missed something super obvious) then that would be a pretty amazing thing to aim for.
I think it is worded somewhat ambiguously, so I understand why people have differing opinions here (I mean, I'm the one who asked the question). For what it's worth, the question has been answered to my satisfaction.
I also think that if you want to play it differently at your table that's fine. It'll make this poison (and the CRIMSON BREATH spell) more or less dangerous, but that's ok as long as everyone at the table is on the same page. I would check with a GM what their interpretation is before using this though.
Anyway, if people want to keep going they can, but it seems like everyone's said their peace. We all have the information, we're just interpreting it differenly.
You are taking damage from an ongoing effect, such as from being lit on fire. This appears as “X persistent [type] damage,” where “X” is the amount of damage dealt and “[type]” is the damage type. Like normal damage, it can be doubled or halved based on the results of an attack roll or saving throw. Instead of taking persistent damage immediately, you take it at the end of each of your turns as long as you have the condition, rolling any damage dice anew each time. After you take persistent damage, roll a DC 15 flat check to see if you recover from the persistent damage. If you succeed, the condition ends.
There is no "skipped bleed at their turn's end" because the flat check doesn't happen until after the victim has taken the bleed damage. As I said above, this would make the recovery check literally pointless ...
Trip.H wrote:
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While a creature can attempt to recover normally from the persistent bleed damage caused by breath of the mantis god, the persistent bleed damage will return if the poison's duration is still ongoing.
would be worded veeeery differently if the bleed was only intended to re-occur on affliction stage change.
If we apply that logic the other way, the text would be worded veeeery differently if the bleed were to return every round. For example:
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While a creature canYou cannot attempt to recover normally from the persistent bleed damage caused by breath of the mantis god, the persistent bleed damage will return ifcontinues as long as the poison's duration is still ongoing.
The wording we got was ambiguous. The wording we would have had if the intent was that recovery checks were useless would not have been. There would have been no need to clarify that you can attempt recovery checks, nor that the damage "returns".
Players who began their Paizo journey with 2E might not be as familiar with this since 2E tried to do away with these extra clarifications, but this kind of redundant text was extremely common in PF1E. The intent is that you do not have to go flipping through the book to find 5 different rules just to know what something does. Instead everything is there on the page.
Now I want to clarify that I'm not attacking you here (online arguments like this can get heated, but I appreciate the exchange), what I'm doing is attacking your arguments.
Your first argument was that the text was clarifying that the flat-checks were there simply to allow you to avoid damage each turn. That argument stemmed from a misunderstanding of the Persistent Damage rules.
Your second argument was that the wording would have been different if Interpretation 2 (in my original post) was the correct one. I posit that this argument peoves nothing, if anything the difference would be more pronounced if Interpretation 1 was the correct one.
You may well have arguments to justify your position, but these arguments don't.
I also want to clarify that saying "This is the Rules As Written (RAW) in the descritpion of the poison" is not in itself a valid argument from either perspective. The reason I say that is ... well, my original post. Both interpretations are "RAW" as far as the english language is concerned, if the only text we read is the description in the poison. The ambiguity is exactly why this thread exists.
Now it's all very good for me to attack your arguments, but if I don't make arguments of my own then I'm not proving anything either.
My first argument is that (since the text in the condition is ambiguous) we should first look at other rules to see what the base rules are. If the base rules of the game can be applied to alleviate any confusion then that is the first port of call. If we do so, we see that the base rules do cover this, and from that perspective we can see how this wording could be misinterpreted to mean something else.
My second argument is to look at how Paizo has written other materials. The idea that "this text wouldn't have been included if it weren't adding something new" is a misunderstanding of Paizo's history of writing rules. They actually do this all the time.
Now of course no argument is 100% ironclad. The existence of this thread is proof that there are 2 interpretations of the rule. But one interpretation seems like it aligns with the base rules far more closely, seems like it adheres to the base mathematics of the game much more closely, and also seems to leave more room for an ambiguous writing (by which I mean, if the intent had been interpretation 1 I think this would have been written Much more clearly). When you look at this from the perspective of writing a game rather than playing one, Interpretation 2 seems the more likely answer on every level.
... it sounds like the RAI was that the persistent bleed can be removed, and would only come back on the next round while the poison is ongoing, so that you could at least try to prevent yourself from taking damage from the poison each round.
I think this might be the source of confusion. Persistent damage is taken at the end of your round BEFORE the Flat Check. So if it were applied the very next round then the flat check would be literally useless.
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Round 1, you take persistent bleed, then roll a Nat-20 and recover from the Persistent bleed.
Round 2, the persistent bleed comes back, you take the persistent bleed, then roll a Nat-20 and recover from the persistent bleed.
Round 3, repeat.
That clearly wasn't intended. It would be WAY out of line with regular power scaling, a single failed save gives you a guaranteed 30d6 of bleed damage over 1 minute? Likely at least 60d6 over 20 rounds as the poison is virulent too. So no, the intention is fairly clear, and the text (while perhaps written in a sub-optimal way) was a clarification that the new stage will apply the bleed again even if the person has cured the previous bleed.
This kind of extra clarification is also completely in line with Paizo's writing style, they often write redundant clarifications so that you don't have to look something up to use the spell/poison/whatever (though there are fewer of these kinds of redundant clarifications in PF2E, as they tried to convey much of that information with traits).
Now if you want to argue what RAW is, there are 2 perfectly valid applications of RAW in my opening post. Neither one is necessarily more true than the other, but one conforms to the general rules of the game, while the other does not. Given any such ambiguity, thinking on intentions is the best way to resolve rules discrepancies like this.
Hi all, thanks for the input. NortKnekten is correct, the thing that I was missing was the base fules for Afflictions:
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SAVING THROW
When you're first exposed to the affliction, you must attempt a saving throw against it. This first attempt to stave off the affliction is called the initial save. An affliction usually requires a Fortitude save, but the exact save and its DC are listed after the name and type of affliction. Spells that can cause an affliction typically use the caster's spell DC.
On a successful initial saving throw, you are unaffected by that exposure to the affliction. You don't need to attempt further saving throws against it unless you are exposed to the affliction again.
If you fail the initial saving throw, you advance to stage 1 of the affliction and are subjected to the listed effect. On a critical failure, after its onset period (if applicable), you advance to stage 2 of the affliction and are subjected to that effect instead.
STAGES
An affliction typically has multiple stages, each of which lists an effect followed by an interval in parentheses. When you reach a given stage of an affliction, you are subjected to the effects listed for that stage.
At the end of a stage's listed interval, you must attempt a new saving throw. On a success, you reduce the stage by 1; on a critical success, you reduce the stage by 2. You are then subjected to the effects of the new stage. If the affliction's stage is ever reduced below stage 1, the affliction ends and you don't need to attempt further saves unless you're exposed to the affliction again.
On a failure, the stage increases by 1; on a critical failure, the stage increases by 2. You are then subjected to the effects listed for the new stage. If a failure or critical failure would increase the stage beyond the highest listed stage, the affliction instead repeats the effects of the highest stage.
Poisons don't necessarily affect you every turn, they affect you when you reach a new stage. That's the piece of the puzzle I was missing. The effect of this poison is that the subject is takes persistent bleed damage, so that happens at the beginning of each stage. If this poison had a stage-duration of 2 rounds it would mean the new stage would appear every 2 rounds, and you would then re-apply the persistent bleed damage every 2 rounds (assuming you hadn't cured the poison), whether the bleed had been suppressed or not.
Source Prey for Death pg. 103
Price 200 gp
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L
Activate [one-action] (manipulate)
To prevent one of their victims from being brought back to life, Red Mantis assassins often poison targets with the breath of the mantis god. After a creature is poisoned by this concoction, internal hemorrhaging frequently results in blood issuing from the creature's mouth—a condition referred to by the assassins as having “the breath of the mantis god.” While a creature can attempt to recover normally from the persistent bleed damage caused by breath of the mantis god, the persistent bleed damage will return if the poison's duration is still ongoing. If a creature dies from the poison's effects, the toxin lingers tenaciously in the creature's flesh for 1 year. During this time, if an attempt is made to bring such a slain creature back to life that doesn't create a new body for the deceased (such as with a 7th-rank resurrect ritual), the lingering effects of breath of the mantis god attempts to counteract the resurrection (counteract modifier +17, counteract rank 5). A spell like extract poison can be used to decontaminate a corpse for easier resurrection, but simpler magic such as cleanse cuisine cannot. A 5th-rank or higher cleanse affliction can also attempt to counteract lingering breath of the mantis god.
Saving Throw DC 29 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 minutes; Stage 1 3d6 persistent bleed and drained 1 (1 minute); Stage 2 3d8 persistent bleed and drained 1 (1 minute); Stage 3 3d10 persistent bleed and drained 2 (1 minute)
So the part that I'm asking about is the bold sentence I highlighted: "While a creature can attempt to recover normally from the persistent bleed damage caused by breath of the mantis god, the persistent bleed damage will return if the poison's duration is still ongoing."
My initial reading was: If an enemy makes their flat check to end the bleed it would come back the following round since the poison is still ongoing. That would mean that there is no real point to rolling those flat-checks since they wouldn't really do anything until the Poison itself is cured.
However I can also see that it could mean the bleed returns the next time you progress to a new stage of the poison (either moving to a more severe stage or a less severe one). The duration of each stage is 1 minute, so if this interpretation is correct then an enemy who makes their save on round 1 of the poison has 9 rounds without bleed, but it will return again if they fail their next save against the poison at the 1 minute mark.
Is there a clarification for this somewhere? Or if not, a general consensus?
Not that the character doesn't work at all, but you wouldn't enjoy the main benefit of being a fighter for the build (the higher proficiency).
For a similar feel I'd probably end up playing an Animal Instinct Barbarian, but it sucks that you can't polymorph and take advantage of the fighter's higher proficiency.
Sorry I'm late to the party (I need to check in here more often), but I thought I'd jump back in.
My original idea was actually to play a Monk with the Druid dedcation and be a bear with Flurry of Blows. There are some other nice synergies as well, pretty much every Monk feat that isn't a stance works in Animal Form, the speeed boost still works, and you can even get a Fly Speed as any anmial using WIND JUMP(cast Wind Jump as 1 action, then Animal Form for 2 actions, then for the next 10 rounds you're a flying Moose or whatever).
Unfortunately my Monk died literally 1 round before we hit level 2, so he never got the Druid dedication. That did leave the character concept open to my backup character though, so I went with Fighter and have been pleasantly surprised with the utility options and synergies available (well, available if you're not using the remaster).
I'm sure there are still a bunch of builds like this using Barbaian/Monk/etc that still work, but unfortunately the exact build I'm using doesn't =P
If you have a build that works though, I find it really fun and wholeheartedly encourage it!
This technically hasn't been killed since I'm still playing her, but she wouldn't work in the Remaster.
My character in our QftFF game is RENNA, a FIGHTER with the DRUID ARCHETYPE(we're using the Free Archetype rules). The crux of her abilities is that she uses WILD SHAPE/UNTAMED FORM to transform, then uses her superior Fighter attack bonus in the ANIMAL FORM to get lots of crits.
The reason it doesn't work in the remaster is because Fighters are quirky. Even though they have the highest proficiency with weapons, you have to choose a specific weapon group, and none of the weapon groups have "unarmed attacks" as an option (There's a strong argument that the Brawling Group works with the Ape form's Fist attacks, but that's more limiting than a wild-shape martial should be). The solution was to take the PRE-MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST DEDICATION feat which gives you full scaling with "Unarmed Attacks" that keep up with your highest proficiency bonus, meaning your Fighter weapon expertise now works for unarmed attacks. Unfortunately the REMASTER MARTIAL ARTIST DEDICATION lost the language about unarmed attacks using your highest proficiency. It likely Only matters for this particular build, but it was an annoying change for me personally =P
Fortunately since we were already playing the campaign the GM didn't want me to have to change character, so she's still adventuring and still gets her full proficiency bonus. I decided that if I was being a Pre-Master character I should commit to that, so I don't get to wear metal armour (Druid restrictions) but i'm totally happy with that.
Actually, it is needed because flurry of blows removes the 1.5 STR for attacks in the flurry.
Not if you go unchained.
Please tell us what is it exactly about the Unchained Monk that let's you do 1.5 x STR mod with an Unarmed Strike flurry of blows.
Actually looking at the UNCHAINED MONK it doesn't seem to say anything about not getting the 1.5 times damage for 2-handed weapons or special natural attacks (eg. Dragon Bite). I couldn't see an FAQ about it either.
We bought pretty much all the PF1e books because we liked those fixes.
To move on to PF2e would mean another huge investment. My friends and I are all approaching 60 years old. We're tired of buying new versions of games.
We're happy with PF1e, so that's what we're sticking with.
I basically agree with this.
In my group we rotate GMs, particularly when we run one-shots. We also like to try new systems - We've played a few of the Freeleague YZE games (I'm a big fan of this for combat-lite games), some Call of Cthulu and Delta Green (d100 system), some Pulp Cthulu (2d20 system) and of course PF2E.
Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and they tend to be suited to telling different types of stories. Trying to play an investigation or horror in either PF1E or PF2E is an uphill struggle, and while it's doable it tends to be more fun in a system built for it. I Highly recommend people try a few systems and find the one(s) best suited for their group. If you prefer telling a particular type of story then use a system that works for that kind of game.
For me, PF1E and PF2E are suited to the same kinds of story, and I much prefer PF1E. I think PF1E has better story-telling mechanics than PF2E, as PF2E feels more like a board game and less like a simulation (neither is better, just different preferences). However PF2E's more game-y feel comes with some inherent advantages, notably that it tends to be easier for the GM to run, and to balance (or rebalance) encounters since there is less variance in the numbers that come from the PCs. We're pretty democratic about what kinds of games we want to play but ultimately if you want to play a particular system you have to be willing to run it. The two main GMs in our group prefer PF2E, and if they're wanting to run games I'm willing to play them.
So I'm still playing a bit of PF1E (finishing off our Iron Gods campaign) but sadly I'm unlikely to play much more of it unless I can organise myself to run a campaign. I'd actually love to do that, but I'm a chronically disorganised person so ... we'll see =P
I played DnD back in the day (last played 3.5), then moved over to PF1E. The group I play in has a regular game, but we often try new systems when they come out just to see what we like. We tried PF2E and eventually swapped over to it by starting a new campaign (Our main campaign is QftFF, but on the off-weeks we're finishing book 6 of Iron Gods in PF1E).
The defining factor that led us to swap to PF2E as our main system was the ease of using it as a GM. We all take turns ag GMing, but no matter what system you run the GM is the one who does the most work, and has to do the most prep for each session. As such the rule is basically "If you want to run a particular system then you have to be ready to GM it." While we're fairly democratic in what kinds of games we play (both in terms of the system we're using and the kind of role-play or the theme of the adventure), at the end of the day we can only play something if someone is willing to run it. If someone wants to run an AP in a particular system then that's what we tend to play.
PF2E is a good system for GMs, you can run single-enemy encounters, you can re-balance fairly easily, there usually aren't as many complex abilities as something like PF1E. Generally the math keeps everything in check so you don't have to re-balance encounters just because you have a Gunslinger or a God-Wizard or a Bloodrager with a +59 to grapple.
Personally I prefer playing PF1E, but if I want to play it I have to be willing to run it. I've learned to enjoy PF2E, it's still fun to roleplay and I've found a few classes and builds that I find more exciting (my Reflection-heritage Mirror-Thaumaturge is one of my favourite character concepts ever in any system). I generally think any game can be fun if you fit with the group, but sometimes it can be a bit difficult to find the fun in a particular system. It took me a little while, but even when I "wasn't enjoying PF2E" I was still having fun roleplaying with my friends, and through that I've found aspects of this system that I really do enjoy. Also as a maths nerd I really do appreciate the +10/-10 crit system for how much extra depth it gives.
One of the bigger problems I found with Monk with wildshape is the loss of AC as you level, the difference between the Monks unarmored AC and WS fixed AC is huge at higher levels
That's not such a big deal for me. Our campaign only goes to level 10 so we don't have to deal with high level stuff. Animal For itself gives an AC of level+18, so at level 10 it will max out at AC:28. A DEX-based Monk with a +1 Rune on their outfit would have AC:30, but that's basically the pinacle there and it's only 2 above what I'll have (I guess the pinnacle would include a shield, and that WOULD be a significant difference, but that takes more actions).
Even with that, giving up a little AC for extra reach, damage and flavour seems fine to me. It's only a point or two.
EDIT: Also I ended up playing a Fighter instead of a Monk, so the difference will be smaller for me.
Bloodrager dip also makes you move 30 feet in armor (fast movement), and you can trade in the likely not great bloodline power for a bloodline familiar, + init is nice after all (your saves will probably be good enough, but init on pallys is always welcome).
Ooh good call on both of those points. You're basically getting a free feat by doing this so it kinda pays for itself. And yeah, bonus movement is definitely worthwhile.
Without improved critical the characters normal combat effectiveness take a big hit. While he can use divine bond to gain keen that is also limited use ability.
I was assuming you'd just pay for a Keen enchantment on your weapon. That seems a better move than using your Divine Bond for something that important.
-you could just buy a training enchantment to make space for another feat. the question then becomes "is this feat better than +1 att dmg?"
That's an interesting one. Bless Weapon specifically doesn't work with Keen, but would it work with a Training Enchantment? The RAI is obviously no, but the RAW?
I actually don't really like the way we talk about tier lists here. Not only is an objective tier list impossible, I don't think it's productive. In my opinion the objective of a tier list is to facilitate discussion and the exchange of ideas. Having a definitive list that people just look at and take as gospel is the opposite of that.
While it's hard to ignore the spell-casting meta in Pathfinder (spells are very powerful and versatile) we have a tendency to overvalue them. I've seen multiple threads where someone is asking for help because the Barbarian or the Fighter is derailing the campaign by being an unstoppable juggernaut and people just reply with "Well you should be able to deal with it, at least it's not a tier-1 class like a Wizard." Sure an over-tuned Wizard might be harder to deal with, but that doesn't mean a Fighter can't be a problem. Not only is that unhelpful, it stagnates the discussion and blocks creative thinking.
With that in mind, I don't think this SHOULD be "objective" (if such a thing exists). I think an alternative could be that we just invite people to give their opinions on which classes are strongest at particular levels (or level-ranges), and get an aggregate of people's ideas. Getting multiple tier-lists along with the reasoning behind them is more likely to contribute to someone's idea of which characters suits them or what to look for. This would likely be more work, but perhaps it would be spread out among more people - you could simply be the one compiling results ...?
I've probably gone over my limit on rants today, especially in this thread, so I'll leave it there. However you do it I think facilitating more discussion is of more value than trying to come up with an "objective" list.
If you are going to compare classes you should not have an agenda beyond trying to be objective.
I understand what you're saying, but that's not really how our brains work.
My take on Wizards vs Sorcerers for example - TLDR: Sorcerers shouldn't get their new spells a level after Wizards.
My ramblings on Sorcerer Spell Progression:
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Wizards are supposed to have more breath of spell knowledge, but in return Sorcerers are supposed to be able to do more spell-slinging. While it's Technically true that they can, in reality they can't - or more specifically they can't with their highest level of spells, the spells most likely to impact the game.
When a Wizard gets to an odd level and gets their new level of spells they only have 1 spell-slot, while a Sorcerer has 3. Except it's not really true that a Wizard only has 1 spell-slot, most Wizards also get a School Specialisation slot, which means they have 2. Except that's not true either, they also get an extra spell-slot for having a higher INT, which means they have 3. Unless of course that Wizard has taken a Divine Bond instead of a Familiar, in which case they can technically cast 4 spells of their highest level.
Now of course the Sorcerer also gets +1 of their highest level spells from having a high CHA as well, so their 3/day becomes 4/day, but because they get a new level of spells 1 level after the Wizard, the Sorcerer is only casting 4 max-level spells and the Wizard is casting 5 by then. This means the spell-slinger Sorcerer class actually has Fewer max-level spells than the more versatile Wizard. And this is at the levels where the Sorcerer compares most favourably - Even levels. At Odd levels the Wizard has a whole spell-level above the Sorcerer, and can cast them 4 times per day (roughly once per combat).
One of these scenarios is true at every level from 3 to 19, it isn't until level 20 that the Sorcerer finally overtakes the Wizard again, and I don't really count level 20 for much because even the games that get there don't usually spend much time there.
Anyway, enough ranting, back to the thread =P
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Now the reason I brought that up and had my rant is that you might decide (like I did) that Sorcerers are unfairly punished with their slower spell progression. If you think that, you might decide that having a tier-list that goes 1-5 shows off the Wizard's advantage, and helps to display the Wizard's Objective advantages. Or you may think that the Sorcerer has other advantages that make more of a difference, and the Sorcerer really is on-parr, or even better than the Wizard. In this case it might make sense to have the tier levels 1-4, 5-8, etc because at those break-points the Sorcerers and Wizards are much-more on parr, which could help show how objectively similar they are.
Just to be clear, the Wizard does objectively have an advantage, but they are objectively similar. The Sub-jective part is How similar, and how much of an advantage you think the early spell-access gives the Wizard. While it's obviously the intent to be objective, a Tier list is never really objective, so working out what you want to show is really a big part of it.
Ooh, or another fun thing you could do if you can spare 1 level and 1 feat: At level 5 take a level of Bloodrager and the Extra Rage feat (You probably can't afford a Furioius weapon at level 5, but later on that makes this even better). That should give you ~14 rounds of Rage per day (depending on your CON), which roughly matches what a Barbarian would have at level 5. Also with the Fatigued Mercy you can use those rage-rounds only when you want to.
For a level 5 build the only things Paladin gives you at level 5 are your Divine Bond, one 1st level spell per day and you get a feat. This would give you more stopping-power than a Divine Bonded Weapon, so it depends if it's worth a feat. If you don't want to spend a feat you could take a TRAIT instead and still have ~11 rounds of Rage, which is likely enough with the Fatigued Mercy.
What feat on my build is worth giving up for those for spells?
I'm not saying it's definitely better, but I'd probably swap out Improved Critical. Yes you're missing out on Bless Weapon, but Critical Focus gives you roughly half the bonus of that spell anyway, and it's always on. Meanwhile you save spell-slots on Bless Weapon and can use them instead for other fun spells you get with Unsanctioned Knowledge. I think you'd probably get more out of that build.
That said, it depends what you're looking for. Unsanctioned Knowledge isn't an auto-pick like Fey Foundling or Power Attack. It's a fun thing that gives you extra options, and the useful of that not only depends on you, but on your party composition as well (eg. there's not much point getting 1 cast of Heroism per day when the Bard can cast it 4-6 times per day at the same level).
So yeah, I can see arguments either way. I can see how you could fit it into the build if you wanted it. But it's definitely not something you Need. If you're not feeling it then it's probably not the feat for you.
I think it would take a total obsessive nutcase to do this for every class and archetype.
Not to mention every way of Combining archetypes. I don't even know of a comprehensive list of archetype combinations, let alone evaluating ranking them.
Joynt Jezebel wrote:
Giving a score for each level isn't the only way of doing it. It is possible to group levels for example levels 1-4 and then 5-8. Or levels 1-5 and then 6-10 and so on. 20 is divisible by 4 and 5 which makes these groupings convenient.
I feel like this is probably both more achievable and more useful. Ranking things every level is a spreadsheet and not many people are really going to evaluate things to that level of detail. However knowing which classes tend to be strong at 1-5, 6-10, 11-15 and 16-20 is something people can look at and easily see trends.
I'm not totally sure how granular you'd want to get either. As you say you could do them in four 5-level blocks or five 4-level blocks (or something else). Which one is more useful might depend a bit on which classes you're looking at. For example, at level 4 all 6/9 casters and all 9/9 casters have a maximum spell level of 2nd level spells, but at level 5 suddenly Clerics, Druids, Shamans, Witches and Wizards have a new level of power (3rd level spells) so they jump up a tier. Meanwhile Arcanists, Oracles, Psychics and Sorcerers don't get that new level of power until level 6. If you did levels 1-5 that would probably put the prepared casters up a tier since they end up with more powerful spells by the end of that bracket (particularly in that first bracket when Sorcerers and Bards are essentially on the same level of spells) but if you did levels 1-4 you'd have all the 9/9 casters on the same level of spells at the end of each bracket, even though they got there at different times. But then the question is, do you WANT that difference to be shown or would you prefer to diminish it? That difference might help you decide on a difference in tiers, or it could be something you think is a difference, but not worthy of a whole change in tier, so you might not want to emphasise it quite so much.
We're getting into how to present data here ... what narrative you want to tell using the data. You probably don't know until you do the comparisons, so perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself =P
Actually the other thing is whether or not you want 4-5 uniform groups of levels? Maybe levels 1-4 are one group, but 5-11 are the next group, and 12-20 are the last group? There's no particular reason it has to be all the same number of levels. It might be more important to separate them at specific levels when certain abilities come online ... just a thought.
Personaly i feel like ither everything is pre remaster(for all players and monsters) or nothing is. it feels wrong to mix and match.
Yeah we were going to totally switch, but not everyone's stuff was affected by the remaster, and some of it was changed a lot more than others. For example, as was mentioned earlier the Martial Artist no longer gives improved proficiency with unarmed strikes, which means my whole build was basically shot. Since this was a pre-existing character the GM didn't want to totally nerf it mid-campaign so he let me keep the Premaster version. That's when I decided if I was going Premaster for that I should be Premaster for the whole character (eg. No heavy armour on my Fighter/Druid) and everyone thought that was a reasonable compromise.
Nelzy wrote:
on to the topic of battle forms, i stoped even trying to use them since the rules are horrible (as you might have noticed),
to much are unclear and will depend alot on you GM's ruling, so for me druids have lost one of its core pillars.
but i have accepted that since they have not even wanted to comment on the state of Battle Forms for years now, let alone giving a erata or clarification.
I haven't had Too much of a problem with the rules. I say that having created a ~90 post thread helping me understand the rules for Battleforms, but I think everything I've had trouble with is in this thread, and it's all been cleared up to my satisfaction (and my GMs, which is important too).
The problem I'm having now is that the Wild Shape/Untamed Form macros for Foundry VTT don't seem to be supported anymore. I have some macros, but the spell doesn't seem to scale with level, so every time I attack I have to manually input a bunch of modifiers to get things where they're meant to be.
Anyway I realise that might be something I should bring up on a Foundry forum rather than hear, but I thought it was worth a shot.
Thanks everyone, even if you can't solve this exact problem I really appreciate the help people have given me =)
I've just skimmed these so forgive me if I've missed something, but shouldn't Greater Vital Strike be +12d10? (The 16d10 includes the 4d10 from the base weapon, which you've already counted.)
Nope
L20 Marksman (Psionic Class; Dreamscarred Press) with the Sniper Style [https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/marksman/marksman-combat-styles/] increases the base damage of the weapon when using Augmented Shot ability, in this case 1d10 becomes 4d10 and Greater Vital Strike multiplies BASE damage by 4
Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Yes you get 16d10 damage, but what you've written there is 4d10 PLUS 16d10. Where is the extra 4d10 coming from in that scenario?
Just to make sure I'm being clear, let's ignore all the other parts of your equation:
So it should either be: "4d10 (Crossbow) + 12d10 (Greater Vital Strike)" or just "16d10 (Crossbow Greater Vital Strike)". The Total damage dice from the Crossbow on a Greater Vital Strike should be 16d10, but what you have is 4d10 + 16d10 = 20d10.
That's unless I'm missing some other ability somewhere? I'm fully willing to believe I am, I'm just checking your working basically =P
(Sorry for the excessive formatting, I tried without it and it just seemed like some of the information got lost in the noise.)
i whd prob just put one spell and a meta-magic feat for staff
That would be the sensible thing to do, but it's not really balanced. It would make your staff better and cheaper than other staves of similar power. So you would need Express permission from your GM to do that, the GM would be well within their rights to restrict you to the staves available in the books.
Remember rule 1 of crafting is to find something similar and try to match pricing before going into formulas.
If you're just looking at 1 spell repeatedly you could also look at Scrolls. A scroll of Disintegrate would cost 1,650 to buy, or 825 to scribe. That means you could scribe 32 scrolls for the cost of your staff of Disintegrate (the 1 charge per cast version). That's an option if you're just looking for 2 specific spell.
I'm confused about what you mean about a premaster Druid Archetype? It's Martial Artist that changed in a relevant way, here. The Druid Archetype never allowed it to work without the old Martial Artist dedication.
Oh. I thought it would be cheesy to pick and choose the Remaster/Premaster stuff to get the best of both worlds so I decided to make everything Premaster. So I have less AC when not wild-shaped because I can't wear metal armour. The GM thought that was sensible.
I might have some remaster stuff (eg spells) because that's automated and I really can't be bothered trying to implement that, but mostly all the choices I've made are Premaster.
EDIT: I'm a Premaster Druid because I needed Premaster Martial artist for the build to work properly, and I didn't want to cheese it too much. That's what I meant.
As a separate problem my Martial Artist archetype doesn't seem to be giving me Master proficiency in Unarmed Strikes. This might be just a remaster change thoguh so there may not be a fix for that.
That one is a change in the remaster, yes. Not a bug. There's no way to get a fighter's higher proficiency on battleform attacks at level 5 or higher, now. Until level 19, anyway.
Oh actually I did know that. I'm playing a Premaster Druid archetype for that reason, complete with metal-o-phobia and all that. Totally forgot =P
Yeah I guess I'll just have to deal with that manually. It's not too hard, just takes a few seconds longer.
EDIT: Mods I mis-clicked when I was flagging this to change to the advice forum. I meant to flag it as in the wrong forum. Woops =P
Hi everyone.
My Fighter/Druid has just hit level 7, and after 1 combat as a large Bear with Fighter feats it seems to be absolutely crazy good. I'm still sad about missing my flurry-of-blows Bear, but Fighter has been fun.
One problem that seems to be coming up is actually just that we're using Foundry VTT for this game, and the Wild Shape/Untamed Form macros don't seem to be working correctly, and as far as I can tell they are no longer supported. If anyone has any suggestions (eg. Newer macros) I would greatly appreciate it.
(I also might flag this to be moved to the Advice forum, it probably should have been moved over a while ago.)
So I do have a Wild Shape macro, and I did find an update to "Untamed Form" as well. Unfortunately they don't seem to increase the spell level along with my character level. I don't know if this is because I'm only using the Druid archetype or if it's a just bug for Wild Shape, but it's a thing. It means that my attacks in Animal Form are still coded with a +1 to damage (should be +9) and that my AC is not updating to the correct level either. Also since I hit level 7 I become large when using Wild Shape and that is not working either. I have found work-arounds for all these problems, but my turn is becoming slower due to my need to manually change things.
As a separate problem my Martial Artist archetype doesn't seem to be giving me Master proficiency in Unarmed Strikes. This might be just a remaster change thoguh so there may not be a fix for that.
I've put this here in the hopes that someone might have a fix (or might have an idea what I've done wrong with my macros) but I also recognise that this might not be the place to ask, and that there may be no solution ...
The materials cost is subsumed in the cost of creation: 400 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (300 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities (200 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). Staves are always fully charged (10 charges) when created.
So for a staff that does nothing but cast Disintegrate it would be 400gp x 6 x 11 = 26,400gp
Quote:
If desired, a spell can be placed into the staff at less than the normal cost, but then activating that particular spell drains additional charges from the staff. Divide the cost of the spell by the number of charges it consumes to determine its final price.
This means you could lower the cost by having it take more charges per cast. Number of charges per cast vs cost:
Remembering of course that you can only recharge 1 charge per day, so a staff that uses all 10 charges would only be usable every 10 days (and would require that you don't need those spell-slots for those days).
Note that the first rule for crafting custom magic items is always to look at pre-existing magic items to see if there is something already there, and to try to match those prices accordingly. Just because the usual formula gives us a certain cost doesn't mean that this is balanced, and by looking at items already in the game you might find a more appropriate cost.
Crafting a staff with only a single spell is much cheaper than a staff with multiple spells, and is NOT the norm for this game. A GM might require that you add a few thematic spells to go with it, or may say that you have to at least closely match the price of a pre-existing staff, eg. the STAFF OF MANY RAYS(that's the cheapest one I found with Disintegrate, thought I could have missed something). In fact a GM may simply say that you can't craft a custom staff, that you have to pick a pre-existing one from the list. This is Rules As Written, not just "GM Fiat" like everything is. The rules on crafting custom magic items specifically give the GM discretion to dictate costs or even the possibility of crafting unique custom items.
Given that the Staff of Many Rays costs almost the same to craft as the custom 1-charge-per-use Staff of Disintegrate I would probably just craft that staff, but I guess that's between you and your GM.
I've just skimmed these so forgive me if I've missed something, but shouldn't Greater Vital Strike be +12d10? (The 16d10 includes the 4d10 from the base weapon, which you've already counted.)
Re: Bless Weapon. I probably wouldn't worry as much if you're going to be taking Critical Focus.
Bless Weapon and Critical Focus are good for the same reason. They increase your chance to confirm a critical. They're also both Much better on attacks with a lower to-hit roll.
The way Critical confirmation rolls work is that it actually simplifies the math to do with how often a hit will confirm. Let's assume that we have a character with a 15-20 crit range (30% chance to crit on any hit).
MrCharisma's random musings wrote:
If you only need a 3 to hit (90% chance to hit) then 33.3% of your hits will be critical threats. 90% of those threats will confirm, which gets you to exactly 30% of your hits being confirmed crits.
If you need a 9 to hit (60% chance to hit) then 50% of your hits will be critical threats. 60% of those threats will confirm, which gets you to exactly 30% of your hits being confirmed crits.
If you only need a 15 to hit (30% chance to hit) then 100% of your hits will be critical threats. 30% of those threats will confirm, which gets you to exactly 30% of your hits being confirmed crits.
This works for any chance to hit, those are just the easiest to show the math.
Note: This is talking about the chance of a crit IF YOU HIT, not if you attack.
So the way Bless Weapon works is that it will increase that to a 100% crit-chance on the attack that only hits on a 15+, but it's still only a 33.3% crit-chance on the initial attack that hit on a 3+. So it's much better on lower-BAB attacks or against enemies with higher AC.
Critical Focus is similar. Against the attack that hits on a 3+ Critical Focus is only really giving a +1 to the roll (since a 1 is still always a miss). Even on the attack that hits on a 9+ it's taking you from a 30% chance that each hit is a crit to a 40% chance. But on the attack that needs a 15+ to hit Critical Focus takes it from a 30% chance that each hit is a crit to a 50% chance to crit (100% of hits are critical-threats but now you confirm on 11+).
Of course Critical Focus not as powerful as Bless Weapon, but it's on 100% of the time, it works against non-Evil enemies and it doesn't cost spell slots. And the fact that it's a "Feat Tax" (leads to excellent feats like Staggering Criticial - I also didn't see how good that was, thank you) means that there is a very good reason to take it.
So yeah, if you're taking Critical Focus then Bless Weapon isn't as important. It also means that you could manage perfectly fine with a Keen weapon instead of Improved Critical, or even just using your Divine Bond to make your weapon Keen for difficult combats. Of course Bless Weapon is still a nice-to-have, but since the conversation has mentioned a few "Is it worth the feat?" options this becomes one more of those. Is it worth the feat? Depends what you're going for.
So, far I have not really seen any spell that really adds something that the paladins spell list cannot already do something similar to.
I don't have a lot of skin in this argument, but you can find good things there if you look.
Take from the Bard list:
- HEIGHTENED AWARENESS is one of my favourite 1st level spells. It gives a bonus to Perception and Knowledge checks that stacks with other common bonuses, and you can dismiss this spell for a +4 to Initiative - which is fine because it's a 1st level spell and you can re-cast it. It's also a Personal range spell so your party can't cast it on you.
- HEROISM is a standard for everyone, and getting it as a 2nd level spell is great. Oh yeah and this is the "other common bonuses" I was talking about with Heightened Awareness, yes they stack.
- LESSER GEAS ... I'm actually surprised this wasn't on the Paladin's spell list already. This fits the Paladin perfectly.
- DIMENSION DOOR. I didn't look very hard for this, there are probably other options more suited to a Paladin but this spell is pretty useful for anyone.
Now I'm sure there are other spells that can give bonuses, but these are still strong options. Between Heightened Awareness and Heroism alone you have a +4 for Knowledge, Perception and Initiative rolls, and a +2 to basically all other d20 rolls. These last 10 minutes per level as well, so while Paladins might be able to get similar bonuses I'm not sure they could get them so consistently, and without spending in-combat actions. That's pretty good for 1 feat, and that's just the level 1 and 2 spells. So if getting 13 INT is reasonably within your grasp it could be worth it.
Anyway I also do understand that INT is often a Paladin's best dump stat. 13 INT might not be 3 build-points, it could be 7, and that's a steeper price to pay. On top of that, as you said there are other spells worth casting. So while I think it's a good feat, I don't think it's a feat every Paladin needs.
This is worth noting. Paladins are probably the best boss-killing class in the game, but against mooks they're more of a damage-soak than a damage-dealer.
Do you mean this within the context of the Paladin alone, or compared to other Martial classes? Unless one assumes the Paladin doesn't take Power Attack and/or is consistently unable to utilize his spellcasting, Divine Favor alone keeps him on par with the Fighter's Weapon Training until 17th level.
Are you taking Advanced Weapon Training into account? Also Gloves of Dueling are fairly affordable by mid-levels. Self-healing is the thing that really sets the Paladin apart. It's not like paladins are worthless outside of Smite, but it also sounds like you are really underestimating what a fighter can do.
What I was saying is that the base chassis of the Paladin doesn't really help them deal damage. Smite is an Incredible damage buff, but it only works vs a single target, and you can only use it a few times per day. If you're not in a combat with 1 big opponent then you need to think about what resources you want to spend to help you deal with a group of enemies.
Fighters get Weapon Training, Barbarians get rage, both of which are universal bonuses that work against anyone ... but Fighters also get Feats and Barbarians get Rage Powers. The difference between a Fighter and a Paladin at 9th level isn't just a +4 from Weapon Training, it's also a difference of 5 feats. You don't have to spend your extra feats on combat feats (which is something Fighters often forget, bonus combat feats means your regular feats can be spent on increasing your out-of-combat utility ... but I'm getting distracted), but they can be, and they often are. This means that where a Paladin might be wielding a Scimitar the Fighter can be wielding 2 Falcatas with ITWF, Improved Critical, Critical Focus and Two Weapon Rend. Where a Paladin wields a polearm using Combat Reflexes and Power Attack the Fighter does the same but also adds Intimidating Prowess, Hurtful and Cleaving Finish for potentially 2 extra attacks per turn.
This doesn't mean the Paladin Can't deal with these groups, but the point is that you should plan for it. If you want to be a boss-killer you're fine, you have that built-in with Smite. If you want to be a tank you're fine, you have the best saves, some immunities and the best self-heal in the game. But if you want to kill hoards of reasonably-dangerous enemies you have to spend resources on that. Feats are a resource, Divine Bond is a resource, Spells are a resource. Paladins have all these things so they're part of the class too, but you have to choose them. Divine Favour is absolutely a good way to get a nice bonus vs a bunch of enemies (and thinking about it, could be better than the Divine Bond), but it's a spell you have to prepare ahead of time, likely multiple times if you want to be prepared for encounters like that.
Sorry that got a bit wordy, but you get what I mean. The point isn't that Paladins can't do this, it's that you Can but you have to plan for it.
Bless weapon last for 1 minute per level so will usually last through an entire combat. This spell will really help when the character is fighting lots of minions. Smite evil works great vs. the boss, but not that well against his minions. This spell more than any other will allow the character to do what the OP wants.
This is worth noting. Paladins are probably the best boss-killing class in the game, but against mooks they're more of a damage-soak than a damage-dealer.
Bless weapon is one way of dealing with this, but I also think that's where the Weapon Divine Bond comes in. Once you hit level 9 you have 2 Divine Bonds (each lasting 9 minutes and giving a +2 bonus) and 3 Smites per day. You should be able to get either a Smite or a Divine Bond each combat. Smite is obviously much better vs bosses, but Divine Bond will give you a smaller bonus that works against everything. Between that and Bless Weapon you should have a good amount of combat bonuses even against hoards of smaller enemies, which is not really the Paladin's shtick.
