N. Jolly's page

Hey all, got a quick preview to drop for y'all, this is going to be for the legendary ninja class. This is only a preview of some of the material of the class, but we are taking feedback on what is being shown, so feel free to comment on the doc or in the thread. And feel free to add yourself as a playtester. The legendary ninja is a class that takes some major departures from the base class including granting 4th level spellcasting that starts from 1st level and comes with cantrips among other unique concepts. This preview will only be for a few days, so make sure to check it out while it's up!

Legendary Ninjas preview

This document actually involves the introduction of quite a few new authors, so please be kind.

And if Jason's tweet gets to 10 or more retweets, we'll be adding the spellcasting archetypes for other classes to the preview doc.

Welcome all, N. Jolly here to introduce a new project from the Legendary Games team. Here's what Jason Nelson, the publisher, has to say on it:

PROJECT #2: COREFINDER - This is Pathfinder Refined. It retains the core structure of Pathfinder 1st Ed and is intended to be generally backwards compatible with it, in particular on the GM side, so that existing PFRPG monsters and adventures can be used without the need for massive revisions. It has a lot more room for innovation and redesign on the player side when it comes to classes, feats, and spells. This is an edition that distills the very best of Pathfinder 1E - it fixes the broken, clarifies the muddy, purges the chaff, condenses the redundant, reins in the OP, improves the lame, and polishes what's already good.

It also has a second purpose, which is to extract the core essence of Pathfinder 1E to its Core (hence the Corefinder name) in a way akin to the 1980s Rules Cyclopedia for the BECMI series of D&D modules, and it will present genre-free core for the rules that can be adapted to any genre, PLUS a Corefinder Fantasy module that incorporates magic, magic items, and all the trappings of a traditional PF/D&D-style game. Whether we publish these as separate books or an omnibus is more of a logistical question than anything else, but we would like to have the root Corefinder able to be adapted to different genres and styles.

This project is going to be to Pathfinder what Pathfinder was to 3.5, revised by the best of the third party scene. Considering the pedigree of our developers and designers, I can promise that this is going to be the definitive version of the game, and the base rules will be made with lots of ideas and concepts that have helped make Pathfinder great in mind.

For those who would like to stay in the loop directly, there's also the Legendary Games Discord, a place where you can speak with the designers directly about this new project, make suggestions, and use that one emote I have of myself!

Welcome to the Legendary Games open playtest for the Legendary Alchemist! We’ve been working on this class for quite a long time, and we’re happy to share it with you. Unlike other playtests, this one will only be a week long, as we’re anxious to finish this class. But we will be listening to any and all feedback during that time, doing our best to improve the class and make it as Legendary as possible! Please feel free to comment or leave feedback here, and we hope that you’ll enjoy our newest offering!

Or “This is 5th level?”

So at this most recent gencon, I was able to run the playtest module for Pathfinder 2nd edition. The adventure itself was serviceable, pretty standard for a con module, no real problems aside from things being pretty abrupt (even for said con standards).

I started the adventure as a Barbarian, Amiri. When I looked over the sheet, I saw a lot of information, but almost none of it factored into what I could do in the adventure. I’m 5th level, and by this point in PF 1e, you basically have hit your stride as far as your concept goes, especially build wise (complain if you want that I say build, not gonna stop me). Because we were 5th level, I felt like I was going to really get the chance to get into the system, to pull things apart, and get a great idea of how a 5th level character could play.

This was not the situation.

Amiri had 2 combat options aside from rage (and rage was just spend an action to get some benefits); sudden charge (move up to 2x your speed and attack, so effectively a bonus move action) and Wolf’s Bite (deal strength mod on a trip attack). There was no information on how to trip, so I didn’t have the necessary tools to even know how to use my only other unique option, so that was fun. So much information just felt superfluous on the sheet, to the point that my eyes were starting to glaze over it. This felt weird, since with how many new mechanics needed to be included, I had none.

There was also some ability that if I shook off influence of mind control, it was a critical success. There was one instance of mind control in the module, so I didn’t have a chance to try it out, but it felt very limiting. Rage itself felt fine enough, like it did what it said on the tin, but without an accuracy boost, which was annoying. I was accurate enough, felt as though I had the same accuracy as everyone else at the table, which for a barbarian felt unsatisfying considering I was using an action to buff myself.

Enemy damage made sense, they were doing 5%-20% a hit, combat felt like it was trying to last longer due to how many enemies there were, but in combat? I was bored. Like legit “what am I supposed to do?” bored. I had 2 combat options, and to make me feel even less special, the fighter in the group also had sudden charge, so my one unique thing felt all the more boring. The entire first combat consisted of me activating rage, walking up with sudden charge (assuming they weren’t in my normal movement range) and attacking twice after I’d activated rage. This was the exact same thing I assumed would happen with the new action economy, and I’m not happy to be right here.

I had nothing else to do, I tried tripping once, succeeded, but didn’t really feel like I’d gained an advantage. Tripping has effectively become “-2 AC until your round (+1 to ranged), and -1 action” rather than how it felt before. Flanking wasn’t satisfying, movement felt entirely without value without AOOs, and positioning was effectively worthless for melee as all we did was move into position to attack…and attack twice. There were quite a few times I saw people 3x attack because they had nothing else to do, despite the fact that this 3rd attack is virtually worthless.

As expected, the +10 to crit caused bosses (of which there was 3 in the adventure; a golem, a sniper and mage) to crit more often, skewing the balance of combat in their favor at times, but a friend of mine was running a healing paladin, so it wasn’t really a huge issue. I had absolutely nothing to do with my reaction (to the point that it might as well have not existed), and my offensive routine was painfully stale. At 1st level, this would have made sense, I didn’t have the abilities to do anything, so of course I’m only doing one simple thing (despite other systems such as Path of War or Spheres of Might giving unique options at 1st level).

The golem battle had some vaguely interesting mechanics, but its offense was straightforward and lacking in polish, to the point where I actually almost forgot about it while writing this.

But this was 5th level, I should have had options, I should have had exciting things to do. The fighter had one ability where they could attack two people if they missed one, but only if they were being flanked, so an ability that at best puts you into a bad situation to use. And they had sudden charge, like me, so that was basically most rounds.

The only interesting part of combat was the second boss’s spells, which managed to actually give value to positioning and make combat feel more unique than ‘trade full attacks’. Our own caster had some fun spells in that respect too, again feeling like a fleshed out character rather than my full attack machine. I deeply regret not playing a caster for this, because just like in 1e, they had unique options that actually felt like they changed the flow of combat rather than a DPS race like what we already had.

Positively, I did like how the ‘slow’ mechanic interacted with the action economy. As a whole, I did enjoy the new statuses, as they kept up a varied combat situation without being as overwhelming as the 1e statuses, which was a solid step forward. Being able to stack them is almost certainly something I’d like to do in the future, but those were out of my reach, as I was a humble martial, and not a world changing caster.

I also like how hardness worked for constructs, it was a nice way of giving them more durability without going with straight up resistance. I’d say that was one of the things I liked most about the entire session, which was a depressingly low bar.

Speaking from what I saw from the other players, our alchemist felt like their bombs were lacking, and requiring resonance to use them was a draining and unfun experience, leading to them being tapped on bombs after a single encounter (there were only 3 encounters, but in a standard game, this would be an issue). The fighter’s only unique ability was available while poorly positioning themselves, and both the fighter as well as the paladin were often full attacking due to other options being nonexistent. Our fighter raised his shield maybe twice, feeling like using it wasn’t really worth it due to how fragile it was.

As a whole, I was disappointed. This was how 1st level should have played (and as stated above, other systems manage to break up that monotony), not 5th level. We all had fun at the table, cracking jokes and playing up goofy situations, but the actual game was far less engaging that I would have hoped, and lead to me zoning out at times. I informed my friend that at times, I was on auto-pilot, and this was no exaggeration.

Pathfinder 2e has not done nearly enough to make martials feel fun or interesting. While one can claim other abilities would have done this, I was given a character sheet that they had created, designed to show off the system. If this was their way of introducing me to a 5th level character, I am not impressed, and cannot say I would play a martial character again. I’d consider a caster, but that puts us right back to where we started in 1e, and that was supposedly something that was going to be fixed.

In summation, while there are some mechanics which I really do enjoy, the majority of it felt like not enough effort was put into advancing it as a system, the action economy did not encourage anything but repetition, and I can’t say I enjoyed combat, at least anymore than I enjoy 1st level 1e combat.

Welcome to the Legendary Cavalier open playtest!

As you’ll see, unlike other legendary class rebuilds, the legendary cavalier is far different than its base form. The design goals here were to make a class that could work as a battlefield leader, one who could enhance allies while still focusing on mounted combat and out of combat situations. With new abilities to enhance diplomacy and its uses, the legendary cavalier is far more capable of engaging NPCs, and with the new abilities added to the legendary cavalier’s mount, it serves a far more consistent role in combat.

The playtest will be lasting for 2 weeks, and comments are open, so please let us know what you think. In addition, threads will be posted over at Paizo.com for any feedback, so let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see in this project!

So as I've been curious about this for quite some time, I figured I'd ask the community which classes you believe need to be rebuilt the most. I've got a straw poll here to vote, but I'd also like to hear reasons why you think classes should be rebuilt.

Which classes do you believe should be rebuilt?

Happy holidays, all! Today I bring you the gift of the legendary shifter playtest! This playtest will be going on for the next 3-4 weeks, and as time goes on, I'll no doubt be adding additional content to the project. I do hope that you'll enjoy it, and hope to see your comments!

Legendary Shifter Playtest

Welcome all to the open playtest for the new legendary class, Legendary Gunslingers! Our goal here was to provide a more interesting and dynamic class to include in games, as well as one which better encapsulated the spirit of firearms in fantasy. To this end, we’ve decided to give the class a great deal more choice while making it more capable of contributing both in and out of combat. In addition, we’ve added several archetypes which are compatible with this new class rebuild, each one ready for playtesting. So please feel free to comment on the doc or in the threads on Paizo or Giant in the Playground, and looking forward to hearing from you!

The playtest will last 3-4 weeks depending on participation, and make sure to comment on the spot listed on the doc if you'd like to be listed as a playtester.

So I've decided that to expand my horizons as well as my fan interaction, I'm going to start running a blog where I answer gaming questions, do reviews, and other such fun things. I'm looking to help use my time gaming to help others. I've already answered questions on things like how to run more punishing encounters, dealing with pvp in games, and making the best GMPC you can. I'd love to get more questions from the community, as well as things which you would like to have discussed, so please check out the blog (and maybe check out the patreon?), and hopefully I can expand the amount of reviews and such I can dedicate to this blog.

In my character creation guide found here, the initial link to the guide is dead, could I please have the link changed to this?

Thank you for your time.

Welcome all to the Spheres of Might open playtest! For the past few weeks, we've been running a backer only playtest and gathering quite a lot of data on this new and exciting system, but now we'd like to open it up to the public to get as many people's thoughts and opinions as possible. There has been a TON of changes from the previous preview, and the new open playtest includes the complete roster of spheres and classes which we will be included in the full release as well as new content such as martial traditions, conversion archetypes so that you can use Spheres of Might with traditional Pathfinder classes, drawbacks to allow you to further customize your experience, and more!

While you can comment on the doc directly, we'd prefer you to make longer comments here or on the Drop Dead Studios forum! We're looking forward to seeing what you have to say, so let us know, and let's get this open playtest rolling!

Spheres of Might open playtest

Sphere 1
Sphere 2
Sphere 3
Class 1
Class 2
Additional Rules
Conversion Archetypes

After FAR too much stalling, the Legendary Kineticists II playtest is finally live!

Legendary Kineticists II playtest

For this one, we're going to dole things out as the playtest rolls along (which is scheduled for 4 weeks), as there's some things we'd like to give more time to incubate. But we have quite a few things that we'd like to go over for you all!

Nihilcist: We've done so much with elements that this time we're making a non element; something that fights with pure nothingness.

Onslaught Sniper: People have been talking about a DBZ level blaster for a while, and the onslaught sniper should give them exactly what they want here with a flurry of blasts!

Bestial Kineticist: Now it's not only players who can get on the kinetic fun, it's their animal companions too!

Elemental Bomber: Know what's about as fun as bombs? Stuffing kinetic energy into them and chucking them at people!

Legendary Kineticists: Consider this your unchained kineticists, with the edits that Team KOP would make to the class to make it a more dynamic experience as well as solve issues with which we've had with the class since the inception.

Kinetic VMC: We enjoy VMC over here, and this should hopefully let other players get involved with the kinetic fun even if they're not willing to take the class (pro tip: use this with the legendary kineticist in regards to burn for best results).

Kinetic Mystic: Finally a theurge style prestige class for magic and kinetics!

All that and a ton more in the new Legendary Vigilantes II playtest, and be sure to comment either on the doc or in the thread about issues and such you have so we can address them ASAPossible! Thanks, and have a great playtest!

Legendary Kineticists II playtest

It's no surprise that as the writer of 8 different guides, I'm a large fan of them. But I'd like to know what the community thinks of class guides. They're certainly a dividing issue, as some people think they homogenize builds too much, while others appreciate having all of that information easily accessible, learning about things they would have otherwise not known about. So I'd like to get the opinion of the community on what people think about guides; if they're a good thing or if you'd like to see less of them.

Welcome all to the presumably FINAL book in the Kineticists of Porphyra line. Since we're ending it off, we wanted to do it with a bang, giving you the people the chance to look under the hood and see how things are going to work before they come out. You can comment on the doc or leave comments in the thread, but either way, I'd like to invite you all to help us give this wonderful series the best send off we could possibly ever have!

Kineticists of Porphyra IV Playtest

Hey all, N. Jolly here, figured I'd make a discussion thread for the book proper now that it's out. It's currently available at the following locations:

The LG website
Drivethru RPG
Paizo
Open Gaming Store

And also remember, the Legendary Villains: Vigilantes playtest is also still going on.

But this thread is for discussing content from Legendary Vigilantes, so looking forward to hearing if you have any thoughts, concerns, or questions about it!

Hey all, N. Jolly here again! So in between other projects, I've managed to sneak one in about one of my favorite classes, the gunslinger. Now I know a lot of people don't like guns for a variety of reasons, so here I've done my best to address as many of these reasons as I could, including things like new custom mods for firearms to make them more customizable, new archetypes to make previously terrible weapons actually quite nice, and other awesome things that'll make you rethink your stance on guns.

Right now it's on Drivethru, and hopefully soon it'll be up at Paizo, but here's hoping you'll all cowboy up and check out my attempt at making gunslingers more than a 5 level dip class.

Welcome true believers! N. Jolly here, author of both Legendary Kineticists as well as Legendary Hybrids: Kinetic Shinobi (not to mention numerous class guides for the alchemist, gunslinger, kineticist, warpriest, and more). Here I am hosting Legendary Games first open playtest for our newest release, Legendary Vigilantes! Due to the complexity as well as the versatility of this class, we have decided to do an open playtest for 2 to 3 weeks (depending on results, feedback, and other factors) to give you the chance to test out this new material. I welcome all feedback from actual playtesting to comments made while reading through it that you would like addressed.

The playtest will be hosted on Google Drive, so feel free to comment on the doc directly as well as post in this thread. This playtest will be cross posted on Paizo, Giant in the Playground, and (hopefully) Reddit, so please feel free to comment wherever works best for you, and I hope you all enjoy what we've created:

Legendary Vigilantes Open Playtest Doc

Hey all, I wanted to stop talking about all of this in the KOP thread, so I'm going to let you all know what's going on with me, the kineticist, and Legendary Games. Jason N. has been super cool about letting me write some new stuff for them, and with this new stuff comes my (presumably) last new element, which would put me at 6 elements for the class. So let me give you a rundown of what you can expect to see.

Legendary Kineticists: Mind

So I talked about a new element, and that new element is MIND! You may wonder why I'm talking about a single element in the way that it's getting its own book. It is. Mind is HUGE! We're talking over 90 utility wild talents big. This is an absolutely massive 'super element' that's also coming with its own archetype, the true psychic, as well as a few other things that I think are just going to help make your lives better.

Legendary Kineticists: Additional Options (Working title)

Now I know there's some of you who have been asking for me to step out of the normal kineticist with this one, so myself and Team KOP have done just that, not only doing work on making more infusions and talents, but also including non-kineticist archetypes, such as the Awakened bloodrager, Surge Fist unchained monk, and Evoker bard! There's also a ton of new kineticist archetypes like the War Kineticist, Soundweaver, and others!

Legendary Hybrids: Shinobi

I'd consider this relevant since it was born from LK:AO, since this is a hybrid class of both the ninja and kineticist. To me, it felt like the most obvious of combinations to go with, and plans for it are going to involves full archetypes, favored class bonuses, and other things to help give you the most fleshed out flame throwing eastern inspired character possible!

For things related to these things, I should probably be talking in this thread, as well as their placement in the guide and other things like that. Personally, I'm super excited about a lot of this, as I've been trying to incorporate people's feedback into things as much as possible. For those KOP loyalist, LK:M and LK:AO (and Shinobi) are going to be KOP compatible, and some things in KOP should probably be used (since I didn't want to straight copy them) in the LK entries.

I myself see this as a sibling series to KOP, and I really hope people who liked that series will be willing to give these entries a chance too. As always, I seriously thank anyone who's been following what I've written, as it's been a real joy to work with Legendary Games, Team KOP, and everyone else who's helped make my previous works a success.

So I'm sure a lot of people know and use point buys, but sometimes you'll see threads that talk about how "Oh, you're using an X point buy, of COURSE they're destroying things" or others talking about how certain point buys are literally unplayable, either for certain classes/ideas or just at all.

So given the standard point buy levels (10/15/20/25), at what point do you believe the CR of an encounter should be adjusted? How much of a class's power really is point buy driven? I personally don't think a 20/25 point buy is really even enough to increase CR, maybe a 30, but I wanted to get other people's opinions on the value of a point buy to them and in their games.

Do the impossible
See the invisible
Row, row
Fight the powah!

Welcome to my 8th guide, and this was one I did not out of a base love of the class (although it's REALLY growing on me), but out of a community need. I wrote a bit before what makes a guide like this difficult, and I haven't changed my opinion on that one bit, instead knowing that this will not be an easy guide for me to write.

I'm not incredibly well versed on some of the tricks and such, so I'll be depending on the community to tell me if I'm missing something or have something rated incredibly wrong due to forgetting about something, but I'm confident together we can all put together a guide that'll help everyone out!

This guide will probably be moving along a lot slower than my other guides due to the fact that I'm writing other things, and I'll have to split my time between them and this. I do want to get this guide done ASAPossible, but I can't promise anything.

And if you'd like to say thanks by making a donation to getting this guide finished, please click on the link in the guide to show your support. It'd help me out and give me more time to work on this guide.

Races is (mostly) finished off although if there's anything that should be added from newer books, I'm up for including it. Blessings are finished, and I'll probably be moving onto feats next.

Also might eventually do some 3P work for this, but if I do, it'll be done just like how the kineticist guide's 3P section is, completely sectioned off from everything else.

So we've all heard discussions about how the architecture in fantasy worlds fails to take into account magic. Castles assume walls will keep people out, guards have no way of spotting invisible people, and other examples of this exist, and yet world building as a whole tends to ignore this except in limited situations which are often specifically called out.

Knowing this, what steps do you think should be taken dealing with a world that deals with magic regularly? For this, let's assume Golarion, a world in which magic is quite common, with higher level spellcasters (level 10 and up) being uncommon enough that building in regards to them would only be considered in the most important of places (capitals, castles, etc).

Hey, had some stuff I wanted to have edited real quick.

Can I get the name of this thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t897?Kineticist-of-Porphrya-discussion-thread
changed to: [Purple Duck Games] Kineticist of Porphyra (and guide) discussion

Also the name of this thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pz1z?N-Jollys-Guide-to-Alchemical-Genius#1
changed to: Chasing the Philosopher's Stone: N. Jolly's guide to the Pathfinder Alchemist

Can I also get the link from this post:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pz1z?N-Jollys-Guide-to-Alchemical-Genius#1
changed from what it is now currently to:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hChbcEsEfQsR7NkwKlzO-GLYtrOtxlkGHpRQgKK Z5gc/edit

And finally, can I have this post edited:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2su6f?Mastering-the-Elements-N-Jollys-guide-to- the#1
to include the following text at the bottom beneath all the other text: NOTE:All discussion of 3rd party content from Kineticist of Porphyra or other 3rd party sources should be done in the official Kineticist of Porphyra discussion thread.

Thank you very much, the Alchemist one has just been bugging me forever. The old Alchemist post links to the original and defunct guide on GITP, and I'd rather have it link to the actual guide.

Since the kineticist guide is getting all sorts of off topic post, I'm going to make a thread here for anyone who wants to discuss it. Hopefully this will help clear up some of the clutter in the main thread. Anything relating to KOP should be discussed here, including it's involvement as well as ratings for KOP options.

This is a point I brought up in another thread, but it's something I wanted to discuss more in depth and get some ideas on.

Something I wanted to ask here; does anyone think that anyone above T3 is needed in an AP? Like any of them, or are there certain ones that require that level of narrative power more than others?

To shorthand, T3 is effectively 6th level casters/sphere casters as far as I have been lead to believe/TOB or POW martials/other things of that caliber.

I really feel like keeping all players at T5-T3 would help solve a lot, since from what I've seen, higher than that almost feels like NPC levels of needed narrative control. As I've said before, Paizo hits it out of the park on T3 design, so much so that I think full casters are almost superfluous to the system.

I've been thinking of doing something for a while of making a 6th level caster version of wizard and cleric, although witch and oracle probably need it more due to them having a more interesting narrative niche.

Really a 6th level caster wizard could be interesting, maybe continuing to give them higher level slots, but not learn any spells of those levels, so they're just metamagic fillers.

Overall, if we cut arcanist/cleric/druid/oracle/sorcerer/witch/wizard and replaces them with their 6th level caster counterparts, the game and the level of play would seriously increase. Really it seems what spheres and POW were aiming for, a solid inclusion at the T3 level that would help balance the game. I believe 9th level casting isn't needed in this system, maybe lower a few spell levels to make sure we're still getting some of the more important thematic spells, but everything else? It's just too much to have in the hands of players.

I will admit this idea will take some adjustment (summon spells should be readjusted to when they're received for one, possibly drop the levels of resurrection magic, etc), but the crux of this discussion stands: Are 7th-9th level spells needed in this game? I mean we could reconfigure wizards and such to be 6th level casters, compensate them for the lowered power in different ways, but just removing these spell levels from the game would help not only the C/M disparity, but also probably give a better narrative range for storytelling.

Personally, I like the idea of 7th-9th level spells being NPC caster classes, things outside the player's abilities, make more of a 'boss class' to have involved in the design process, and hell even makes dragons more scary to have them access spells the PCs could only dream about.

We could even have the PCs be able to gain only 1 of a 7th+ level spell, have it somehow related to their specialty, that way it's not entirely barred off, but that's debatable.

I keep seeing these threads for people, so I figured I'd give some space to ask me anything you wanna know about me, probably just stuff related to guide writing and such though since that's kind of my thing. But if ya wanna ask whatever, go for it, I'm game for MOST questions, since I don't have all the answers.

As I discussed in another thread, I'm starting to realize how much more of a balancing point the floor, or worst a class can be, is important to balance, far more than the ceiling, or best a class can be. I'd like to discuss this with others though and get some more opinions on it. To give the examples I gave in the other thread in a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being "barely functions as intended if at all", 5 being "functions well as intended", and 10 being "functions too well and breaks balance."

Barbarian: 2 to 5
Bard: 2 to 6
Clerics: high 2 to 9
Druid: 3 to 9
Fighter: low 1 to 4
Monk: low 1 to 4
Paladin: 2 to 5
Ranger: 2 to 5
Rogue: low 1 to 3
Sorcerer: low 2 to 9
Wizard: high 1 to 10

Alchemist: high 2-6
Cavalier: 2-4
Gunslinger: 2-4
Inquisitor: high 2-6
Magus: low 2-6
Oracle: 2-9
Summoner: 4-8
Unbarbarian: 2-4
Unmonk: low 1-4
Unrogue: low 1-4
Unsummoner: 3-8
Witch: 2-8

I myself think probably the best point for the game to be played is from 3-6, still on the lower end, but before we get to anything too intense. It's a place where the lower end of classes need a bit of optimization to stay relevant, but everyone is still feasibly playing the same game. Post 6 is getting into the fullcaster's realm, where tricks to instantly end encounters and more exploty things are relevant. I'd love to see others opinions on the ideas of class floors and ceilings.

Since there's a few questions about it in my thread, I figured I'd ask here.

Can one use kinetic blade with a simple blast to make it a melee blast, and thus applicable to be combined with melee attacks for conductive weapons?

Also in the same vein, is it possible to use substance infusions with a simple blast being used in combination with a kinetic weapon? I'm assuming form infusions are right out due to the fact that it's being channeled through a weapon, but substance ones seem like a viable option, since as of yet there's nothing banning an alchemist's bombs from being used with one of their variants and conductive.

Asking due to a few cases, but are SLAs treated like spells for how feats interact with them? A few examples for this that I was wondering about was elemental focus, as well as lunging spell touch.

Hey, wanted a ruling here, is the kinetic blade's type of attack a 1 handed or light weapon, or does it depend on the form you have the weapon take? And does it work with power attack? I myself just assumed it was a light weapon, but I'd like some clarification before I go deciding anything with this.

Oh man, it's been a long wait, but I've finally broken ground on this class. Unlike my last guide, I want the community to be a bigger part of the creation of this guide, so I'm opening up discussion as early as the first words are written.

Two lovers, forbidden from one another
A war divides their people
And a mountain divides them apart
Built a path to be together

Secret tunnel!
Secret tunnel!
Through the mountain!
Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel! Yeah!

I want to hear what everyone wants from this guide, to know what things you want better explained, and what you need clarified.

This is as much the community's guide as it is mine, and I want to provide you the best guide that I can. Consider this the first time something involving the kineticist actually listens to feedback! (Kidding, Mark...)

I should note that I haven't gotten a lot of hands on time with the class since the playtest, so hopefully soon I'll be adding more personal experience to this than before.

NOTE: All discussion of 3rd party content from Kineticist of Porphyra or other 3rd party sources should be done in the official Kineticist of Porphyra discussion thread.

Personally I've just started to get into the world of 3P, and it seems like there's always a lot of material coming out, but it also seems difficult to keep track of what's happening, what kickstarters are going on, and so forth. Is there a location that has like news about general 3P happenings and such?

Hey, reading the familiar folio, got a few questions.

1st: Can a Homunculist take the Tumor Familiar discovery? There's really nothing against it in the rules, at least from what I've seen.

2nd: Assuming the answer to the first question is yes, can you also take the Familiar Bond feat, since at that point you'd have one homunculus, one tumor, and one regular familiar?

3rd: Again, assuming the answer to the first question is yes, when you take a feat that influences a familiar (Evolved Familiar, Improved Familiar, Mauler's Endurance), do you have to select one familiar with this, or does it apply to all of your familiars?

4th: Does a Homunculist's Homunculus use the stats for the Homunculus or the base creature for stats, size, and abilities such as poison and the Homunculus's telepathy?

5th: When you take Improved Familiar Bond, can you add an archetype to that familiar then? Do you have to wait until you level or until your familiar is destroyed, or would it be an act of retraining?

Sorry if this has already been asked, since I only have what's on the SRD, so I don't know if the book itself list a limit on familiars.

This is in reference to the advanced rogue talent Skill Mastery, which states:

The rogue becomes so confident in the use of certain skills that she can use them reliably even under adverse conditions. Upon gaining this ability, she selects a number of skills equal to 3 + her Intelligence modifier. When making a skill check with one of these skills, she may take 10 even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so.

There is evidence for either one, since the wording states that Skill Mastery allows you to take ten on skills even when distractions wouldn't allow you to, although Use Magic Device says you can't take 10 on it no matter what.

The issue is that stress and distractions aren't making Use Magic Device unable to take 10, the skill itself is stating that you can't take 10 with it.

So yeah, what's the ruling here?

Everybody starts somewhere

Another secret project of mine, but one that I've wanted to make for a while now, I feel like this is really something I've needed to make for a while, since I haven't really seen a lot of guides like this. The guide itself isn't a lot like my other guides, as there's more snark and no overarching theme to this one, but it still holds a place in my heart for something that will hopefully help people learn how to build characters. It's not written for powergaming or optimization, just pure character building.

For a lot of builds, it's fun to dip one level in a martial class to pick up some nice benefits, but there's always going to be that associated lost of caster level, spells, and spells known. So it makes me wonder, what's the value of that caster level? I ask that in respect to what would be a fair 'tax' in order to compensate for getting that caster level back?

We already have the Magical Knack trait which increases your caster level by 2, but doesn't apply to spells known and amount of spells per day. This is half of the Practiced Caster feat from 3.5.

There's already an example of something far more powerful than just regaining one caster level in Esoteric Training, a boon for having high standings in an organization.

Due to your membership in a spellcasting guild (and Fame score of 35) you gain a +3 bonus to your caster level with one spellcasting class of your choice and a +1 bonus to your caster level with another spellcasting class (up to a maximum of your character level). These bonuses grant you additional spells known and spells per day for your modified caster level.

So is the loss of caster level something that shouldn't be able to be overcome? Is it something that's worth a trait? Two? A feat? An item?

The ability in question exist, although not in a game that doesn't have this organization in it. The listed ability is far more powerful, so it makes me wonder why an ability like this hasn't been created yet.

Hey there, have a few questions about the following alchemical discovery

Void Bomb

1. While it's listed as Drow being a prerequisite, is this actually a prerequisite, or an assumption on the part of the PFSRD? In the same book, Grenadier is listed as an archetype in the Hobgoblin section, but isn't given a similar tag as a racial archetype. Nothing about it seems like it should be Drow exclusive, so I was curious here since it's so good.

2. Does it have an effect on a flying opponent who fails their save? It states that it knocks the target prone, which you can't do to a flying target, but the flavor and RAI seems to be that it forces the target to the ground, which makes it seems as though it should lower the altitude of the target. Amusingly, if they pass the save, it WOULD have an effect, reducing their fly speed and would probably force a decrease of altitude for winged flight due to how winged flight works.

Man, I've been working on this for 5 days and barely anyone found it. Must have been because of how stealthy it was.

I give my life
Not for honor, but for you
In my time there'll be no one else
Crime, it's the way I fly to you
I'm still in a dream, Snake Eater
I'm still in a dream, Snake Eater!

That's right, I'm back with a new guide for the gunslinger, and surprise, it's already finished! No WIP tag on this, it's officially done, although that doesn't mean I'm not still taking suggestions, looking for feedback, and hoping to have everyone play the best Solid Snake they can.

Gunslingers have tons of sweet archetypes, and it feels lame that to reload at a reliable speed, you basically need to take one to make it work. Is there something to add to Rapid Reload and Alchemical rounds that will make these things reload at a faster rate?

Okay, so the relevant text of Bracers of Falcon's Aim is as follows:

You gain a +3 competence bonus on Perception checks, a +1 competence bonus on ranged attacks, and the critical multiplier for your bows and crossbows becomes 19-20/x3.

This effect does not stack with any other effect that expands the threat range of a weapon, such as the Improved Critical feat or a keen weapon.

The bold text is what I want to ask about. These items state that they don't stack with things that increase crit range, but they do nothing to the crit range of the crossbow, so they're not expanding the critical threat range of the weapon.

In this effect, there's no reason it shouldn't work with Improved Critical.

Also are there any rules on increasing crit multiplier stacking, since the only rules I've seen for this have been about threat range, since the Bolt Ace Archetype simply provides an increase to crit multiplier, and should easily stack with this, in the end resulting with an (amazing) 17-20 x4 weapon for a light crossbow.

Okay, so right now I'm working on a way to try and remove the following items from my game.

+x Stat items (Belt of Strength, Headband of Intellect)
+x Cloak of Resistance
+x Weapons
+x Armor

I recognize the large amount of balance that I'm throwing out of whack while doing this, so right now I'm trying to figure out the best way of doing scaling bonuses to keep things from going crazy. So far, my idea is to add bonuses where these items would apply, thus removing the need for them.

In a way, they'd be non magical, so they'd be slightly better than their magical counterparts, but I'm not sure that I see this as too big an issue. Moreso the issue is making sure that these items won't be missed, so that when I do give a magical weapon (Flaming, Dancing, etc) or armor, it won't be "Oh, just the new upgrade." I'm looking to remove wonder to the game in magical items by getting the chance to use some of the more exotic ones.

With this in mind, I'd like to find a good ratio to dole out these bonuses in game without having to worry about throwing balance too far out of whack. With this in mind, I'm proposing the following bonuses, although I'd like some more eyes on this to see if anyone can think of a better system of doing this. Note that for this, the +1 to a stat can't be of the same category as the previous one (If at 2nd level you chose +1 to Strength, you couldn't pick a +1 to Str/Dex/Con at 6th level), as well as the two different bonuses at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th must be to different categories of stat.

1st +1 AC
2nd +1 Saves, +1 to one Stat
3rd +1 Att/Dmg
4th +2 AC, +1 to two Stats
5th +2 Saves
6th +2 Att/Dmg, +1 to one Stat
7th +3 AC
8th +3 Saves, +1 Stat to two Stats
9th +3 Att/Dmg
10th +4 AC, +1 to one Stat
11th +4 Saves
12th +4 Att/Dmg, +1 to two Stats
13th +5 AC
14th +5 Saves, +1 to one Stat
15th +5 Att/Dmg
16th +6 AC, +1 to two Stats
17th +6 Saves
18th +6 Att/Dmg, +1 to one Stat
19th +1 Stats
20th +1 to all Stats

The end result would be

+6 AC, Att/Dmg, Saves
+15 to phys/mental stats

I could honestly see cutting it off at 15th level for Saves, AC, and Att/Dmg, but I'd like more of a smooth progression. I could also see the +1 to two stats being +1 to all stats, making generally a better character, although that seems a bit much for me. With this formula, it gives more on level ups, as well as removing dependence on magical gear to an extent.

I do recognize that this could lead to higher stats for some characters (normally it'd be +5 for leveling, and +6 for magic items, making +11 instead of +15 in this system), but it would also stop people from getting +2/2/2 items, +4/4/4 items, or +6/6/6 items, which would instead be a far larger increase in the other direction to total stats. It's a hard trade off, but I think it's for the best.

In concerns of DR, these wouldn't be considered magical bonuses, making magical weapons still useful in cutting through DR, including different types of weapons for specific DR (Silver, Cold Iron, etc).

I could see slowing the progression to get to the golden +5 capstone to each of these more easily, although I'm not sure how would be best. Still, I think I may implement this to help remove everyone having magical weapons to start the game with at 3rd level and such, as well as making them more mystical. I welcome any advice to make a more balanced scaling of these bonuses.

Really since the game's inception, there's been what's considered the "ideal" party, and the classic has generally been Fighter, Magic User, Cleric, Thief. But now that we've got such a wide selection of character classes in Pathfinder, there's more room than ever before to have a party custom tailored to whatever the situation is.

Because of this, I wonder what the 'ideal' party for most people is in a standard game (not obviously themed, such as 100% dungeon delving, social interaction, etc), the most balanced group of adventurers that you'd generally like to have for a standard 4 person party. How much has the concept of Fighter, Magic User, Cleric, Thief evolved with the inclusion of new classes and new options?

For me, it'd be

Alchemist (Thief role): Tons of skills and battle utility in buffing is a must for any party, as well as very competent in combat themselves, they've basically replaced the Rogue for me in all ways.

Barbarian (Fighter role): I personally think all classes should have a resource of some kind, and Rage works wonders for that, as well as Rage Powers giving tons of versatility to the class.

Arcanist (Magic User role): The blend of Wizard/Sorc here is strong, and it feels like such a forgiving class to new players as well as giving a lot of things that experienced players can use as well.

Cleric (Cleric role): Try as I might, I can't find anyone who does this job better, and domains and such are so rife for customization to the point where it's hard to outdo this class.

I still feel like the spirit of the base four roles exist, but with all the options out now, moving beyond them into different concepts seems like too much fun to me.

Sup all, been a while since I showed off all this jazz, figured I'd get people's opinion on it once again though. Just some TOB themed stuff that I thought would be pretty hype.

The Strategist: The warblade version

The Strider: The swordsage version

The Templar: The crusader version

The Technique Compendium: The collection of all techniques.

There's plenty of new styles of disciplines (Scarlet Bravo, Peerless Sniper) as well as others that draw on others (Steel Gospel, White Fang), so give it a look and let me know what you think.

Being someone with a bit of experience in seeing the power levels of certain things, I wanted to get other people's perspectives on a certain issue, namely the ceilings and floors of classes.

By this I'm talking about the skill ceiling and floor, which is to say the most powerful and weakest a class can be. The power floor of a class would be the worst it could be, although in this context I mean it more as the worst it could reasonably see play as, since we could all make a full plate wizard who only memorizes Mage Hand to lift skirts.

So I was looking to get the ideas of what people considered the ceilings and floors of classes on a numerical scale. Power level is subjective though, and a lot of people see DPR as a large part of it. To clarify, at least for myself, that is not the case. For me, power level is the ability to do many things to a high degree of success. If a fighter can do 39230 damage, but he can only do it with a charge lane against a single enemy, that's not very 'powerful.

To me, the system would go something like this:

0: This is a character made purposefully to fail; a heavy armor wizard, mute instrument less bard, or other character concept of which was never intended to be able to survive. This doesn't mean that they won't, or that you can't apply flaws to your characters, this is more intended as an extreme example, like a Merfolk who can't breath air in a non aquatic game.

1: This is a low op rogue, no system mastery, and very 'story' based choices, such as skill boosting feats. Note that I'm not saying this is wrong, I'm saying that in the general scheme of how the game is played, this character is not very adept at performing many roles to completion, using adventure paths as our baseline.

5: This would be a low/mid op bard/alchemist/inquisitor. They take feats that help them out, work towards their class design, but aren't searching multiple books to find THE BEST options. These characters would work well in an adventure path, and maybe even are slightly too advanced for the difficulty curve.

10: This would be a high op full caster, along the lines of the God Wizard or CODzilla. They're using whatever advantages they can, but they're staying within the bound of the rules. These characters are apex powerful in most situations, and are rarely lacking solutions in adventure paths.

10+: This is game breaking stuff, simulacrum wish farming and other exploits that wouldn't be viable in any actual game. I recognize that's a vague term, but it's a subjective topic.

Now for this, I'd pick a class such as Fighter, and say the floor, or weakest it could be is a 2 out of 10, whereas the ceiling, or most powerful it could be would be about a 4.

Now as for other classes, this gets more interesting. The largest issue is classes with low floors being considered 'overpowered.' Honestly the floor is more important that the ceiling for most people, as rarely will people play a character at their ceiling.

To give an example of what I mean, I would consider the floor of the Summoner to be about a 4, while the ceiling to be a 9. Even a relatively low op summoner is about as good as the best fighter, which isn't great balance, but casters were never balanced to martial characters.

I feel as though this is the problem for a lot of cries of OP. It's hard to make a bad summoner, which is why when other people are playing at the same level of optimization, certain characters seem more unfair. If both the fighter and the summoner are low op, we have a 2 and a 4 competing, and this only gets worse if the level of optimization goes up, as the fighter only has so much room to grow, whereas the summoner has an immensely higher power ceiling to reach.

This can lead to frustration on the part of the fighter player, which is justified. Personally I'd like to find more ways to raise the floors of the lower tiered characters rather than working on their ceiling, since as I said before, more people play on the floor.

But I'd like to get other people's opinions about the floors and ceilings of classes, as well as ideas to help alleviate this issue.

OBJECTION!

This is the start of a guide I promised a year ago, but due to the style of it, I won't consider it a 'true' guide. It's more a supplement to the 'Investigator expansion pack', as I'm considering it. Both Investigator and Alchemist are very similar, and as such, there'd be a lot of repeated words. So rather than simply repeating constantly, these guides will be linked in the sense that some Investigator info will be links to the Alchemist guide.

It won't be an entire retreading, as there is a lot of things that make the Investigator special, and while some full sections (extracts, for instance) will be completely linked, I will take those sections to include tips and tricks from uses and integrate them into the guide, giving credit to the creators of those particular tricks.

As of now, this is still a work in progress, as I just started it again today. I'll be working on it on and off as time goes on, and I'd love feedback on this as well as what you'd like to see included, since these are as much your guides as they are mine.

Have fun with this, and if I keep staying in this spirit, I might actually update some of my other guides (maybe someday, synthesis summoner...someday...)

Hey all, making another new class, a sibling class to the Strategist. Another TOB style class, this is the monk/mystic style of character. It's been a lot of fun designing, and I hope you all like it.

The Hero

And for those of you looking for the techniques:

Technique Compendium

Looking for some feedback on both mechanics and techniques here for both classes, although feedback for the Strategist should go here.

Right now I'm still deciding which classes should get which schools, thinking of making Titan Fist Strategist exclusive, as each class should have its own exclusive style:

Strategist: Titan Fist
Hero: Elemental Incarnate/Shadow Heart
Champion: Steel Gospel

Sup all, got a new idea rolling around in the old think pan, gonna see what you guys think. It's a TOB style class for non magical characters, thinking of working on a magicalesque counterpart to it. But for now, check out:

The Strategist

Have fun with this one, it's only about 60% complete though, still working on a few things.