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Since you're going with a feral hunter... why not a feral shadow?

You could have your shadow shift between different animals, or be the one of the shape you most expect to use/the one you default to, in a spirit guide kind of way.

If you go this rute, I'd link the shadow to the shapeshifting: perhaps you were abandoned in the forest when you were young and it's magic transformed you, or you are possessed by animal spirits, or there's a trace of fey ancestry in your blood.

Also, you should note that, should you wish to gain an animal companion, there's a 3-feat tree in the advanced class guide that allows you to do so.

Really, now? Which feat chain is that?

So I am making a character to play in a game my friend is DMing. Now, I have played with him before, his world has a lot of history behind it, and I want to make a good, compelling character for him to add to his history books.

I made a elf using the hunter class from the ACG, with the feral hunter archetype (Basically lose animal companion, and gain wild shape). I envision her as an Indiana Jones-esque explorer. While I was making her, I stumbled upon an awesome drawback, which is Umbral Unmasking [http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/drawbacks/umbral-unmasking].

Now, here is my problem. I can't figure out what I want the shadow to be, and how she obtained it. I have all of my imagination to choose from, and nothing to narrow it down with. I hope that you guys can give me some helpful ideas about this.

In case you want to read it, the character sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=78307.

Animal Companions are ridiculously strong as-is. They may not be talented, but they easily match or surpass PCs for raw power. Add the ability boosts and natural armor to a Cohort, and you're looking at an NPC that can easily obsolete all but the most dedicated casters in a party.

Thus why it's an "either/or" debate - does skill trump power, or is raw power far more useful than versatility?

Uuuh, ACs are strong, but they aren't THAT strong...

If an AC is regularly outscaling your players at any levels, they are doing something very, very, VERY wrong.

I mean, take the big cat ACP. He starts with 14-15 AC, +3 1d6 + 1, -2 1d4 + 1 x 2. We are pretty sure he isn't going to out skillmonkey or outcast anybody, so just pure combat stats.

Your normal level 1 fighter would have 16-18AC and a +4/+5 2d6 + 5-6.

PC outdoes ACP easy.

At level 7, once they get advancement, the ACP is going to have ~20 AC, +10 1d8 + 6, +5 1d6 + 6 x 2. Its a bit of damage, but that's not going to outstrip a fighter at that level by any means in any category, ESPECIALLY when DR and other magic item dependent abilities kick in.

That's a fighter. A barbarian, or god forbid, a paladin or magus could trump the ACP in every department twice over.

They aren't even near how strong you think they are.

And this has turned into a giant argument about shadow weapon...

What I just do it micro and macro.

Smaller than fine is micro. So it would go fine, micro colossal, micro gargantuan,micro huge, micro large, micro medium, and so on. THen it would go to supermicro.

Same with macro. Colossal, macro fine, macro diminutive, macro tiny, macro small, macro medium, and so on.

Scale is usually done between two exponents of two in feet.

So medium is 2^2 - 2^3, large is 2^3 - 2^4, and so on. Colossal is 2^7 - 2^8, macro fine is 2^8 - 2^9, macro diminutive is 2^9-2^10.

ElementalXX wrote:

Pure optimization point, the summoner wins, period. Probably wins almost all classes except may be fullcasters.

Now the hunter has an interesting but lackuster spell list. His animal companion is good but not a good as an eidolon. It does have a feeling of natural if you like that, plus the animal focus is useful.Remember hunters have divine spells and can use armor, also hunters are better archers in general, better bab means earlier combat feats

But yeah is really difficult to overpower the summoner.

The summoner and hunter have the same HD and BAB if feats were spent the same they would make identically good archers one in medium armor one in light. Although I suppose a summoner would have to burn a feat for martial weapon proficiency with a longbow.

If the hunter had full bab or bonus combat feats that would be great but he doesn't...

If we ignore all the bonus feats a hunter gets, as well as animal focus and teamwork feats advantage, totally.

/siiiiiiiiigh

Yes. If you play a class that is categorically broken and banned, you will find that other classes are inferior.

On the other hand, saying that a class that has 6 levels of spellcasting off two good lists, two good saves, 3/4 bab, an ac, great skills, good proficiencies, and decent progression is moronic. The hunter outstripes the rogue, fighter, barbarian, monk, cavalier, swashbuckler and the gunslinger without any argument. Arguably, it outstripes the ranger, slayer, magus, brawler and paladin due to its superior spellcasting.

But its lacking in power, because it can't compete with a summoner, nevermind that it beats out most other martial classes due to the power of its spellcasting and progressions.

In today's lesson, we learn that certain classes in apthfinder are simply worse than others. And that's ok.

" but the summoner dose exist and I can play one."

I have played maybe ~2000 hours of pathfinder total through real life, PFS, Roll20, and cons, and I have NEVER seen a DM that was OK with playing the summoner. The only two DMs I have seen allow it massively house-ruled it, and did not allow archetypes.

In my personal experience, it doesn't exist, and you can't play one.

As a side note, the summoner is better than the ranger at martial combat. You can't pick apart terms of a sum, point at them, and say "Ah, you see, the summoner without his major class ability is weaker in martial combat!". That's insane. The summoner with eidolons or summons is more powerful than the ranger and ac in martial combat. Unless you are in a room where no spells are allowed to be cast, and a permanent banish outsider effect, the summoner will beat the ranger.

Maybe your GM does allow you to play a summoner, though. Go ahead, play one. But don't whine when it makes half the classes in the game irrelevant. That's on you and your GM.

Well, the obvious edge is that most GMs will let you play a hunter.

Apart from that, there is the primal companion hunter, who is pretty much broken, and rightfully banned from PFS.

But yeah, the main advantage is that most rational DMs won't let you play summoners. They are broken. Insanely, absolutely, and totally broken.

You could ask in the same way why anybody would play a fighter, cavalier, or ranger when they could play a summoner. The answer would be the same. Comparing the summoner to other classes isn't viable.

I would agree that at least some sort of base price adjustment such as in firearms could be useful for certain GMs.

Dude, you are trying to equate a completely imaginary field of science which could not physically work in any scenario, and your complaint is that you don't see how steam-powered technology could refrigerate stuff.

It doesn't matter. Steampunk isn't real. It breaks the laws of physics. Its impossible. Its not like making a freeze ray out of it is going to break physics any more than making a laser beam out of it or using it to fire a bullet.

You can't imagine freeze rays as steampunk? Why?

I kinda get the vortex gun, but that is incredibly advanced technology. It costs 182,000gp, so its not something that you would reasonably get before 16-17th level.

The question is, why does it matter?

If you want it steampunk, reskin it. That laser gun now works ons team batteries and fires superheated jets of water. With a bit of thinking, you can pretty much reskin everything in that tech guide to whatever tech level you so desire.

Personally, I wish they expanded a lot more on the options for contemporary - near future firearms in their tech guide. It would be nice to have firearms that aren't "revolver","shotgun" or "rifle". If you are going to support from x to 1800 and from 2200 - y, why not support the time period with advanced projectile weaponry?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/technological-equipment

I love them. They are like magic items, but not boring. No +2 to dex belt, f~$#ing metal muscles. No +2 swords, death rays and gravity guns!

Yeaaah, animal companions are going to die to high level monsters no matter what you do. Having 3 level 7 companions versus a level 9 isn't going to make that much of a difference.

I've been thinking about using a build of 3 sacred huntsman/x pack lord (Or hunter equivilent) to make a teamwork focused variant, since all your animal companions get your teamwork feats.

Choon wrote:

Well, the first thing that pops to mind is the Pack Lord archetype for the Druid. As you advance the companions get progressively weaker (peaking around 7th), so I'm not sure how useful it'll be to you.

I haven't really paid much attention to that archetype as it's considered very weak.

And where are you getting that from?

I cast contagion to try to slow down an army by bubonic plague.

Through a series of very, very, very unfortunate events, and quite a bit of amazing rolling, I managed to wipe out three civilizations.

Including the one I was trying to save from the army.

D'oh.

So, if I timed this properly, I could use the second one to wish for 2 relatively benign things, then wish for a primed nuclear weapon, which my enemy gets two of?

You could just use that to kill your nemesis with some inventive wishing.

Vancian casting: Memorize spells and cast them later, then "forget" them after they're cast? What? Uhg Wizards make no sense! Magic should just work like Sorcerers. Or better yet, you should just have mana. That way better spells cost more mana so you bottleneck attempts to "alpha" an encounter and avoid spellcasters feeling useless if they can't rest to regain spell slots.

Think of it more like rituals. The wizard needs to do long-ass rituals for the spells, which he does in the morning. When he actually needs to cast s@#~, he just does the last few words of that ritual.

And no, it shouldn't. If there is one thing that we don't need in pathfinder, its spellcasters being more powerful

Ah, I see.

Welp, I guess he punches him in the face....

Specifically states that the opponent only gets an attack if you are in the path of the charge IE in the straight line of squares. You don't have to move into the charge, so you could just move parallel to the charge and get off AoO's galore.

"Intercept Charge (Combat, Teamwork)
You can get in the way of an opponent charging your ally.
Benefit: When an opponent charges your ally with this
feat, as an immediate action you can move up to your speed
toward any square in the path of the charge. If you end
your movement in the path of the charge, the opponent
must stop when it becomes adjacent to you and then attack
you instead of your ally. Your movement from using this
feat counts toward your movement on your next turn."

IF you move into the path with a reach weapon, would you get an AoO? What if you moved just adjacent to the path? It seems to me that this could become a very INTERESTING feat for goblins to have.

Monks are not proficent with monk weapons.

F~%$ that.

Quote:

Cast contagion to try and delay an army from sieging a city by weakening them.

Accidentally wipe out three civilizations and kill so many people that the gods won't accept any more dead people. Have 260,000 ghosts haunt me for the rest of the game.

Sounds like an exaggeration of the spell effect.

Which plague was it that spread so quickly that no 5th (or higher) level cleric could remove them? Bubonic Plague?
How did the paladins react to it? How did the churches of good deities react to it?

Nope. Very long story, but essentially, the city that was being sieged got the plague and the army got the plague. The city that was being sieged had bigger problems, and through a serires of events including portals and vampires, the army transmitted the plague to their home city-state, and it destroyed that city, and spread throughout the surrounding lands.

Cast contagion to try and delay an army from sieging a city by weakening them.

Accidentally wipe out three civilizations and kill so many people that the gods won't accept any more dead people. Have 260,000 ghosts haunt me for the rest of the game.

Not a TPK< more like a total world kill...

So this is where all the english majors ended up....

So I have come to a little debate with my party members. I am playing a Tiefling (Half kyton/half orc) CG inquisitor of Shelyn.

We have come to the point where a black dragon is destroying a nearby fort controlled by hell knights. We found the black dragon as a woman trapped in a runed box after defeating some bandits. It asked us to rescue her child from somewhere. We carried it unknowingly for a small portion of time, and investigated into it once we got to the fort. We found it was a mutated abberation black dragon, and someone ratted us out to the hell knights. They had arrested me and tortured me (Among other things) for carrying a weapon of mass destruction (Just me, the rest of the party was off doing some theify stuff, and looking at a subplot rather than investigating.). We escaped when it started destroying the town, and ran off to another town. We are far too low-leveled to deal with this directly, but the other party members want to find the dragon's child to appease it . We have not actually been payed or been offered any reward or motivation for this.

I argued that we had no reason to actually pursue this, and we should leave the hell knights to fry. The party said I had a moral obligation to put myself in danger to save innocents if I could, as an inquisitor of Shelyn. One of the party members promised to the dragon she would get the child back, and feels obliged to help.

Do I have an obligation? I know I wouldn't get my powers taken as away as an inquisitor, but would I have a moral obligation?

Pretty pointless. It's almost assuredly the mercy at 6th level.

You can add this to the obvious bs that rushing the ACG caused.

"You direct a ray of positive energy. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit, and if the ray hits an undead creature, it deals 1d6 points of damage to it."

Sooo, why can't that heal things? Positive energy heal things, right? It's apparently powerful enough to replicate level 1 channeling vs undead, so why can't I heal s&~%?

If you are not aware, the temple champion is an archetype for the paladin that cames out with the ACG.

It has two changes.

"A temple champion does not gain access to paladin spells, and does not have a paladin caster level or spell list. This is not considered a spellcasting class.

Domain Granted Power: At 4th level, a temple champion selects one domain granted by her deity (or a domain suitable for her ethos or goals, subject to GM approval). The temple champion gains the 1st-level granted power of that domain and uses her paladin level as her cleric level for determining the effects of that granted power. Any Wisdom-based aspects of that granted power instead use the temple champion's Charisma. The temple champion does not gain access to that domain's spell list."

"At 5th level, a temple champion gains the minor blessing (as the warpriest class feature) of the domain she selected at 1st level. She uses her paladin level as her warpriest level for determining the effects of that blessing. Any Wisdom-based aspects of that blessing instead use the temple champion's Charisma. At 11th level, she gains the major blessing of her chosen domain.

This ability replaces divine bond and aura of justice."

Some archetypes are traps because they seem good at first, but after you think about it, they are bad. This seems just straight up, irredeemably bad in every way. Why would anybody willingly give up four levels of spellcasting, divine bond, and aura of justice for that?

What am I missing here? And if there is nothing, Writer, what the heck was your thought process when you made this archetype?

I found this wording in the hunter.

"If a character receives an animal companion
from more than one source, her effective druid levels stack
for the purposes of determining the companion’s statistics
and abilities."

Level 40 animal companion, HO!

"Relentless Footing (Ex): As a swift action, you can add 10 feet to your land speed. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus, and it affects your jumping distance as normal for increased speed. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom bonus (minimum 1)."

It specifies no time. I think you would normally assume that it lasted for one round.

But the fur domain grants this power:

"Predator’s Grace (Su): You can, as a swift action, grant yourself a +10-foot bonus to your base speed for 1 round. This bonus increases by 5 feet for every 5 cleric levels you possess. In addition, you gain low-light vision for 1 round. If you already possess low-light vision, the range of your sight becomes three times that of a human in dim light for 1 round. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier."

Whiiiich is just straight up better, and lasts one round.

Or the Travel domain, which just straight up gives you 10ft as a base bonus.

"When the divine hunter would
gain that ability, her animal companion instead gains
two ability score increases (gaining +1 to two different
ability scores or +2 to one ability score). If her animal
companion dies or is released, when she gains a new
one, it benefits from this ability score increase."

Thaaaaaaats a pretty s!@%ty bonus...

Divine huntsmen?

In case you do not have the ACG, the sacred huntsman's main power is that you replace judgments and all associated abilities with an animal companion and some buffs.

"Animal Companion (Ex): At 1st level, a sacred huntsmaster
forms a bond with an animal companion. This ability works
as the hunter class feature of the same name, using her
inquisitor level as her hunter level. This ability replaces
judgment 1/day."

The chivalry inquisition gives you the following as a first level power.

"Mount (Ex): This ability acts as the cavalier ability of the same name."

So what happens? Do I get two animal companions? Can I just not take it?

Is there any spell that acts as an airlock, or stops water in some way?

I've always been under the impression that druid and fey hate each other, but I can't really find anything either way between the two.

Thank you very much. I really wanted the ki pool thing to work, but you are right, he would have like 5 ki points at level 9. I think I will change him to martial artist

Thanks for the feedback. I will think about it. I really don't want to lose the speed bonus, as Boris has kinda become an in-joke in my group because of his ability to move 800 feet in 6 seconds as an animal companion. But what you say is true, flurry of maneuvers is indeed wasteful.

Is there any other archetype that you would recommend that would let me keep my fast movement?

I though about taking the wolf style feats, but they aren't that good. The line is pretty bad, except for the last feat.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=834021

This is the current character sheet. He is based off of my animal companion, and my GM let me keep his stats when he is awakened.

Any ideas on his feats,ect?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wolf-style-combat-style
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wolf-trip-wolf-style
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wolf-savage-combat-style

From the new Blood of the Moon books.

Thoughts?

wizard/cleric- philosopher class, 1/2 BAB full divine casting class that focuses on its casting and gets access to free metamagic and/or MIC feats.

cleric/magus- some form of divine caster that has the Spell Combat mechanic, sadly the warpriest doesn't seem to be going this way and it feels kinda boring to me.

paladin/witch- in all reality I would love to see them remake the Hexblade class from 3.5, or come up with something akin to the Battle Scion from Marc Radle, but even that doesn't scrath my itch for a proper 4/9 full BAB arcane caster. Bloodrager doesn't sit well with me, I was looking for something prepared and INT based.

rogue/fighter- give me one non magical class to rule them all. If I can't have magic, then I want a class that is good at everything else. I personally feel paizo really dropped the ball with this one, the slayer and brawler seemed like they were both uninspired. I really want to be able to play a 'batman' character who is truly powerful and useful even though he doesn't have 'super powers' like all the others.

Yeah,they really do love their divine/magic classes. There are very few classes are are simply martial skill. I was really hoping the investigator was going to be some combination of bard/rogue,but nope.

What classes do you hope they combine?

I kinda hope they make a monk/barbarian combo. Instead of using his anger to become completely uncontrollable,he uses his anger to focus to an absurd point. Basically the slow motion scenes in the new Sherlock Holmes movies.