Natrim's page

Okay... So check my math, would you? I'm looking at mythic Magic Missile and just not seeing a reason to NOT prepare maximized empowered magic missiles here. 65 points? at 19th level, augmented for 130? Quicken (with spell perfection or a rod) for 260 a round? No save, no Resistance, no shield spell, no spell immunity... If a group of players are fighting something that dealing damage to seems a better call then trying to force save-or-suck's....

Well, What else is quite so reliable, hmm? *also looking at 3.5 Twin Spell and thinking 'rods, spell perfection, spend 4 points of mythic power and a couple of high level spell slots for...520 points... Well. Why not?'

Less useful? Perhaps. Very very reliable and actually quite high damage? Yup.

Glad you liked it Ravendork. He's one of my favorites for inspiration.

Cats! How could I forget!

"YOU WILL TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!"

Party is looking for a halfling arcane caster, a known assassin who uses dominate person to turn innocents into potential assassins and has been making attempts on the pc's and the king employing them. The trail has taken them to..the orphanages.

Halflings. Human orphanages. Problem?

But wait! We're 11th level! So everyone starts casting their various detection spells to look for magic. And the witch sees a cat with a magic aura on it run past, and manages to nail it with a freeze hex, thinking 'cat with a magic aura? Could be our mage under a polymorph!'

So he starts tying up this now frozen kitten with rope swearing at it and throwing every non-lethal hex and curse and spell he can think of at it (Scarred Witch Doctor archetype, so big scary half Orc here!) while snarling "You will tell me your secrets!"

And out walks a little old lady, like a 2nd or 3rd level Adept who had put a status spell on her little cat to know if a beggar tried to eat 'Mr Fluffles', freaking out at the massive horrifically scarred half Orc that is now seemingly torturing her cat while a group of heavily armed adventurers stood by watching and laugh. Didn't do our reputation any help, that day. But it certainly did make for some good laughs.

Mr. Welch's list! An excellent contribution.

"Javelin to the nipple!"

Rogues, javelin traps plus the rogue's nipples. Started with a character several years back at our table, who's trapfinding rogue kept finding javelin traps...with his torso. Which invariably would crit. And the cleric kept rolling absolute minimum to heal him. This happened some 6 or 7 times in a row, even with multiple levels gained and months of playing, every javelin in existence would hit him, and only him, for a crit.

It might be Call of Cthulhu instead of PF, but another favorite is Old Man Henderson.

Hellsing Abridged. 'Nuff said.

Homebrew campaign, with crafting feats allowed, saw a alchemist and a summoner character work together with the collaborative crafting rules, to create a CL7 (the spell is level 3 on the summoner list!) Greater Invisibilty potion.

The alchemist then worked up to the Eternal Potion discovery. With Alchemical Allocation to not waste that potion, he had permanent greater invisibility. As he was a beastmorph/Vivesectionist, it was fairly terrifying. Although, at least 80% of anything non-humanoid had so many means of seeing him anyway at that level (16), it certainly didn't feel overpowered. Not in the slightest. In fact, even against flat footed AC, he still had such a hard time hitting that the player, upon the character being disintegrated, turned down the offer of a resurrection to build a ranger.

However, that was at very high level, where invisibility is mostly irrelevant, due to tremorsense/blindsense/blindsight/Necromancy-school-ability-I-forget-the-na me-of, to true seeing to see invisibility to whatever. Certainly made for fun RP though, the character kept forgetting that he was invisible and would try to point things out with his hands... xD

Roleplay? Arguable there are more fighters then rangers in a setting, what with civilizations or organizations being able to churn fighters out from academies and schools, with any mode of thought, style, alignment, complete and total flexibility in mentalities.

Being a ranger tend to require unusual mindset, if one goes by the original theme of the class as a 'protector/warden of nature'. Arguable, and not looking for an argument, merely trying to think outside the box to answer the OP's question.

Other then that... Well, mechanical differences have already been listed. My experience is that the real difference is below level 10 or so, when rangers get access to third level spells (namely, Instant Enemy). Before that, fighters are more consistently reliable in their fighting skill. After that, Rangers are as skilled or possibly more so (With feats allowing for some leeway there). Just some Pearls of Power and they're good.

Oh, and for a GM's perspective, fighters tend to be easier to build then rangers for the party to fight. That's a difference! ;)

I've had a party of all martials, six characters, with rangers and paladins providing much of the healing with wands. That was...interesting, to say the least. With mildly optimized characters it tended to work out, but was extremely resource draining, with large investment in wands and scrolls (HASTE!), and UMD all around. Wasn't quite as fun as a usual party, what with no quick access to utility spells and options. That hit 12th level before the group fell apart. Combat was either very fun or very not. Very much not if the fight was more then both sides charging across a room to bash each other with pointy sticks, in anyway, like...there being pits. Or any opposing spell casters. Certainly made for fun RP though.

I'm playing right now in a party with a rogue, a unoptimized rogue/cleric, two barbarians, a monk, a bard, and a synthesis summoner who has an int. score of 7 (with the player trying to be very faithful to that, so the summoner hasn't cast a single spell, instead thinks his eidolon is the spirits of dead family seeking vengeance). That group started at 1, now at 4-just-short-of-5. The feel is that at level 5, when the wizards and clerics would have access to 3rd level spells, the difference will really start to be felt.

No full casters? Hurts. Doable, until those higher levels. 6th level spells is really where it starts to pull away, I've found.

*Wheeze* *Pant* *Wheeze*

Just..Just gimme a sec, gotta catch my breath... *straightens out, takes a deep breath*

Just read the entire thread, somewhat exhausted ;)

I'll put down another 'The math does not break down, it's just a matter of there being far more (potential) variables to track' camp. Most 'broken' or 'overpowered' spell combinations don't work, or don't work quite as intended, when one takes the time to actually read spell descriptions (As I recall recently JJ and SKR inputted on different threads on the 'Scry and Fry' idea, that if you read the wording of the Scrying, well, you don't have enough to reliably teleport on top of that BBEG scried...)

So high level campaigns are just that-High, or exceptional, difficult, rare, etc with much more important stakes and consequences. I'm currently playing in a campaign that just hit 16th level, with 1 mythic tier. Can we scry the BBEG? Nope, we don't even know who or what the BBEG is yet. We do know he has a teleporting, planeshifting artifact Airship, and is responsible for the abduction and murder/possibly-sacrificing-for-some-as-yet-unknown-reason the head cleric (essentially the direct avatar of the god) of a good aligned church.... And that's about it. We've found hints about this, bread crumbs in 5 different directions, and at least 2 possible motives.

Sure, if we just stumbled across the fellow in broad daylight and he stood there and just traded whatever spells or blows he had, it could very quickly become a game of rocket tag, but rather, the fun is in the epic story telling, of which the combat scenes are important. Was that mythic Iron Golem infused with the power and sentience of an Old Black Dragon a fight the PC's nearly ran away from rather then try to fight? Of course it was. The fun wasn't in the fact that the PC's had a hard fight, it was in that their creativity in finding a way to overcome the beast was challenged, and they rose to the challenge. Did any and all tactics work? Of course not. Did the pouncing Beastmorph/vivisectionist Alchemist singlehandedly murder it? No. Did that player (myself) feel like that it was directly designed to stop his particular character build? No, it was a challenge to everyone.

(For the record, one of the two sorcerer's started using limited wish to regain uses of his draconic bloodline breath weapon to kill it, while everyone else did their best to distract it/support the other characters. Very fun, very difficult fight. It fought creatively, intelligently, and it felt a bit like a chess match of positioning each other into a possible checkmate).

Do saves/DC's possibly need some work? Perhaps. Probably. Do AC/to hit comparisons? Not as much I'd say. After all, why not reward the character for investing their levels into a full BAB class? They can hit their opponent reliably. Whoop te doo. If that's really an issue, well then, why not have a cloak of displacement or some such on opponents you want to last a bit longer? There are just more options to keep track off, and that's all it really comes down to. Good book keeping, on both the players and GM's sides help considerably, but that's just it.

There are options, and the number of them vastly increases at higher levels. That's about all there is to it, and if you feel your system mastery is up to it, well, why not let people enjoy those options?

Ring of Telekinesis. Had a sorcerer with one, and a non-magical adamantine dagger, when the party ran into an extra large iron golem, and the fighter was occupied (I forget how). 'Plinked' to death the golem with that dagger while hovering.

Ring of Invisibility.
Every. Single. 'Sneaky'. Character.
All of them.

Especially the one with the activation word, Potato, that was used by a warforged-esque construct race arcane trickster. He didn't know what a potato actually was, and spent the rest of the campaign trying to argue with the Gnome alchemist that his ring was a 'potato', not those "mishapen lumpy brown..things". Much to the amusement of the players.

Yes... Except, one thing commonly overlooked, is that a rapier is not a light weapon. It can be treated like one for the purpose of weapon finesse, in that it is specific additional option for Finesse, but it is listed separate from the generic category of 'light weapons', both under the Finesse feat on on weapon charts, and fighter weapon groups.

So, no, I'd have to say that a Knife Master does not get the bonus against a rapier.

Spell Recall from Magus. Especially Improved Spell Recall...

Ranged Legerdemain from arcane trickster. I'm going to try to screw up disabling that trap, set it off from 30 feet! Unless it's resetting one, but then I can watch it, and get an knowledge engineering check to figure that out...

So...Two weapon fighting or no, if going pistols? I agree with taking the pistolero archetype if intending to focus on pistols. However, the biggest difference I've noticed is at 11th level, when a gunslinger can take Signature Deed, because that adds 3d6 (and further scaling) precision damage to every shot if Signature Deed: Up Close and Deadly is taken (as a pistolero).

I'd also point there are several different 'good/great' ways to build a pistol gunslinger with optimizing to the hilt.

Rapid Reload is a critical, unavoidable feat, and that requires point-blank shot. Rapid Shot is quite nice as well, minimal penalty for an additional shot? Yes please, may I have another!

Deadly Aim will stack up very nicely for damage. I had a GM look over at my 7th level gunslinger demanding to know just how I was able to do so much damage, so consistently. For your 8th level starting Gunslinger, that'd be -3 to hit for +6 to damage, on all of the attacks. If rolling against Touch AC, that's really not much of a penalty. Then throw in that point blank shot you already should have taken, +1 to hit and to damage if within 30ft (which hey, pistols only resolve against touch AC if in 20 feet! So that's up to +7 damage from feats, +plus any enhancements on the firearm +dexterity modifier from gun training...Generally, about +11 or +12 to damage, easily up to +14, I've seen 15..per shot. At level 8.) So you would have, with rapid shot, and no two weapon fighting, 3d8+36 tp 3d8+45 a round. At only a total of -4 penalty, so...with a Dex of 20, +10/+10/+5 against touch ac, for 1d8+13-14 (+1 or +2 pistol) per shot? That's more then plenty of dakka for 8th level.

However, Snap Shot and Clustered shot, also Deft Shootist, are also handy paths. Deft Shootist allows you to avoid AoO's, which is a huge benefit, but that 3 feat investment is painful. Snapshot enables you to take those attacks of opportunity with your firearm, which is nifty, although I have to ask how useful is that when you only have 1 shot in the firearm, assuming a base pistol, at most 2 with a double barreled pistol, that could be used. After all, reloading is a free action...which means, on your turn. Can't reload during someone else's turn, so that's of limited benefit, unless one is being allowed revolvers.... *shrug*

Clustered shot is one that commonly gets overlooked, but can be very nice. The ability to more or less ignore most DR, and the prerequisites are easy to meet too.

So, in no particular order, for a single pistol build...

1: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload
3: Precise Shot
4: Deadly Aim
5: Rapid Shot
7: Clustered shot
8: Quick Draw
9: Improved Critical
11: Signature Deed. which Deed, well, depends on your build, if pistolero I'd recommend Up Close and Deadly in a heartbeat, and otherwise Dead Shot is rather impressive as well. I would also like to point out that Pistolero or Musket Master, at 13th level, no longer misfire with their style of firearm, so Quick Clear is only worth considering for a vanilla gunslinger. IMO, YMMV.

If going for two weapon fighting, I'd swap out the quick draw or the clustered shot, or both, for the two weapon fighting/improved TWF, and at 12th take Greater TWF. The order matters less as you're building for 8th level not planning a 1st level to go up to 8th, so as long as you have fun... TWF will more or less require some finangling with weapon cords/gloves of storing/level dipping into alchemist for a tentacle or some such, but can potentially double your output. Again, whatever you find fun.

Hope we've been helpful!