Nekrotanos's page

I just finished up Incident at Absalom Station and started up Temple of the Twelve, and it made me wonder about the combat statistics of monsters. The Akatas at a CR 1 having a +8 to hit were able to connect almost every attack if they didn't full attack, and even if they did they had a 50/50 chance of hitting. The Void Zombies made this even worse since they could hit with their tongue every round and deal 2 strength damage to whoever they were hitting. I don't fully understand how this is supposed to be balanced around the pcs at these low levels, since the monsters just get these bonuses to hit, and will almost always hit because of it.
I also noticed a flaw in the ship combat that happened afterwards at the beginning of the Temple of the Twelve. Both gunners on the enemy ship have a +12 to hit against a ship with a 13 starting AC, which I believe goes up to 16(I'm not sure of this calculation, I totally forgot about it when we did the combat) if the pc's pilot has 3 ranks in piloting, which should be possible at that point. That means that the enemies there hit on a 4. The PCs can get to a max of +11 (+3 from bab, +4 from Dex which assumes they put everything into dex, +2 from computers and +2 if the captain motivates) if they were to completely specialize in Dex, and the captain only motivates the gunner. This means against the enemy's AC of 17, they hit on a 6. This isn't too bad, but why do the enemies just have such a huge plus to hit, and why does it expect the PCs to totally specialize in something in order for them to be on par with the monsters? It doesn't make any sense to me, so I'm hoping someone here can help me understand the way these pluses are working. Combat seems to be very weighted towards the enemies right now with how high their bonuses are, and how fast they scale.

Edit: Also, sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I didn't really know where to put it.

or a character that is gear-less? i ask because i play with a person that insists that everything the party gets is "party gear" and every bit of currency must be carried by him. i have tried to get him to "share" but he is the DM's favorite and he gets his way not matter what. so instead of rocking the boat i am looking for a way to create a character that does not need armor or weapons. as such i am looking really hard at a natural attack melee build. but i have no idea how to get rid of the armor reliance.

I didn't fully read the thread here, so I am not sure if this was mentioned before, but there is always the vow of poverty monk. I don't know how ideal it is, but it is interesting and it can't use any magic items, or anything of value for that matter, so it definitely fits.

Edit: Just looked through and it was mentioned, definitely something to try out though if you don't want to worry about gear.

Our gaming group is fairly generous when it comes to hit points; everyone gets maximum at first level and then you can re-roll when you level up, but have to take the second result even if it is lower. However we've had situations where, particularly with arcane spell casters, level after level they roll a 2 on a d6 followed by a 1 on the re-roll or something similar. Given that these classes tend not to have a high Constitutions it stacks up quickly when you have 3 or 4 bad rolls over a few consecutive levels.

Do any groups out there take a look at total hit points every once in a while and adjust for the characters that are severely behind or something similar. There's obviously a certain amount of randomness to the game, but missing four attack rolls in a row is a far cry from getting minimum or close to minimum hit points over three or four levels when you don't have that many to begin with. It just seems to me that players have complete control over every other aspect of the levelling process, but when it comes to hit points (arguably one of the most important parts of it) they're completely at the whim of the dice. I'd definitely like to see if any other groups have noticed this and/or how they handle it.

There is actually a mechanic built into the game that allows you to get more hit points after the roll that fits under the whole retraining thing. It is called retraining, and you can find it here. That is entirely up to the DM as to whether that is available or not, although you always have the option to just allow the HP retraining.

Other than that my table (which I mostly DM, but occasionally we do switch off) always goes the route of either take average or roll for you hit points, the decision of which one you do is made at the first time you level up. We always take max though at first level though, same as you. However, if you get a bad roll you have to stick with it, I like that initial re-roll rule that you have though, I might have to take that.

Edit: Melkiador beat me to the retraining, lol.

Nekrotanos wrote:

Halek wrote:

Yes they have to make an attack. They dont magically lose their ac.

I am assuming you are not using any metamagic or feats. No. You cant use burning hands as pepperspray knowing you wont kill ths crowd of people. Look into merciful spell metamagic if you want to do that.

Are you sure about that? I think you are able to bring it down to the minimum CL of the spell.

Edit: Found a link for it. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic#TOC-Caster-Level

Yes by reducing your caster level you can drop the damage for some spells. However you cant decide to drop the damage after a spell has been cast. No fireballing commoners and not killing them. Burning hands was a bag example.

I though you were talking about just the cl dice, but yeah if you are talking about reducing damage after it is rolled, you can't reduce that.

Yes they have to make an attack. They dont magically lose their ac.

I am assuming you are not using any metamagic or feats. No. You cant use burning hands as pepperspray knowing you wont kill ths crowd of people. Look into merciful spell metamagic if you want to do that.

Are you sure about that? I think you are able to bring it down to the minimum CL of the spell.

Edit: Found a link for it. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic#TOC-Caster-Level

LucyG92 wrote:

I have two completely separate questions but didn't want to make too many threads:

1. If a Stirge is latched onto a character, does the victim have to make an attack roll in order to hit it with a weapon? I would say yes, but my husband believes it should be an automatic hit as they're stationary.

2. Can a spellcaster voluntarily reduce the duration/damage of their spells?

1. You would still have to make an attack roll, you can view it as trying not to cut your own face off. I believe they might also have the blinded condition, not sure about that bit though.

2. I know they can do this for crafting, they might be able to do it for casting as well. I am not sure about that one as I have never tried to do it myself.

Nevermind on the blinded part, that would be more of a house rule if you did it. The stirge doesn't do that to you by the ability as it is written. As for them being stationary, that is reflected by them losing their dex bonus to AC, as the dex bonus shows their ability to move out of the way.

I have two completely separate questions but didn't want to make too many threads:

1. If a Stirge is latched onto a character, does the victim have to make an attack roll in order to hit it with a weapon? I would say yes, but my husband believes it should be an automatic hit as they're stationary.

2. Can a spellcaster voluntarily reduce the duration/damage of their spells?

1. You would still have to make an attack roll, you can view it as trying not to cut your own face off. I believe they might also have the blinded condition, not sure about that bit though.

2. I know they can do this for crafting, they might be able to do it for casting as well. I am not sure about that one as I have never tried to do it myself.

Cheat. Because the caster level requirements on that can be bypassed by adding +5 to the DC. Not all golems though, but it covers the lower ones.

That definitely would cover the low level ones, I guess my shadow golems will just have to wait until I am actually level 18. Paizo needs to put out more golem manuals for the ones they have released after core.

Be sure to talk to your GM as the game may not benefit from you doing so.

In the past I have asked a player to change their PC in a game I was running as this was their focus and if it was to happen'd it would have ruined the game.
MDC

I don't really get how a golemancer could ever actually ruin a game considering how sub-optimal most of their choices are. I have dm'd more than I have played, and I don't really see golems as a huge threat on the board considering even if they get the iron golem manual made, they still have to come up with the ridiculous gold amounts to create the thing. And if they aren't a dwarf wizard with a valet familiar, they are going to take quite a while in creating the damned things. It isn't like they are any worse than a summoner, or even a necromancer. The summoner can make quite a bit more out of their eidolon than a golemancer ever could with their creations, and they can do it for free, and the necromancer can flood the board with your big bads and all their little minions.

Unless you are just talking about the copious amounts of time it takes to make the things, which I guess could do it. We are going into CotCT though, so I should have the city to do it in, and it shouldn't take too long with what I am trying to do with it.

This Thread may help you

I am not sure if that would really help with golem construction though, I don't think there is a specific spell to specialize in that would help (I am not going for animate objects, just golems through the construct golem feat). Although the noble scion could probably cut the golem creation time down to a few days total for a 100k golem with the 2 followers that it comes with at full level relative to you (even lower if the cohort has a valet familiar as well).

So I have been trying to figure out how to make a golemancer type character, and I recently figured out via this that you cannot bypass the CL requirement when creating golems. Because of that, I have started trying to figure out a way to raise your caster level while creating a golem. I have already found ways to reduce the time to make it, such as a dwarf wizard with a valet familiar, but I am not sure of a way to increase your caster level through feats or traits when creating magical items, or golems (which by the link above seem to run by nearly the same rules).
Also, what ways are there to decrease the ridiculous gold requirements for creating golems? And is there any other way to get gold per day significantly up like taking dwarf wizard with the alternate favored class option? I am fine with the race/class combo there, I am just curious if there is another way to do it.

Milo v3 wrote:

.... trapped barns... @_@

I can't stop laughing at this. Seriously, I can't stop. Farm of Horrors?

And everyone though tomb of horrors was bad, wait until they see this one!

Assuming 277,830,696,960 lbs is correct, then you could carry 4,630,516,166 bags of holding (type 4). This would give you 416,746,045,440,000 lbs of gear.

All you need to do is figure out where to put all 4.6 billion of those bags of holding. That is the challenge here I think, and the trillions of gold you will be spending, lol.

Oh, and I think you could put that wizard spell Ms. Pleiades mentioned into a wand for fairly cheap. Just need someone with a respectable UMD to cast it every time you go to sleep.

So I'm making a Dwarf Armored Hulk, one who is something of a layabout drunkard who tends to fall asleep (read: pass out on the floor from drinking to much) in heavy armor, and rarely if ever bothers to take his armor off while adventuring.

At first I thought taking the Endurance feat would be enough, but it only counteracts fatigue from medium armor. There;s also an armor truss to prop up the armor so he can get into it on his own, but that's a lot of work and extra weight to lug around, and is outside his character being a lazy drunk of a dwarf.

So, suggestions for preventing/curing fatigue from sleeping in heavy armor, open to any ideas.

You could be a level 5 oracle with the lame curse, that makes you immune to fatigue outright. Depending on how it is handled, you could pick up mithral heavy armor, which would cause it to become the equivalent of medium armor. Rules text:

Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor.

Because of the "other limitations" part of that, I would assume it applies to fatigue being applied while resting, making it so your feat would work.

Edit: Damn, Gifalas got it before me.

Nekrotanos wrote:

Ninja Clam wrote:

Nekrotanos wrote:

Had your character started putting out the ridiculous damage of the zen archer? The DM might have forced it so badly because he didn't want that in his campaign anymore. I know I had a player in Rise of the Runelords while I was DMing that played a zen archer, and it was terrible for me. I didn't try to destroy the character though, just made things a bit more difficult for them. Damn some of these characters can be frustrating as a DM, and sadly some DMs just decide to go the cheap route and cripple the character in a stupid way.

Well, probably, I was out DPSing the wizard. At 6th level I get 3 attacks at +11/+11/+6 to hit, and 1d8+8 damage, and can spend a ki point to get an extra attack ( I have 8 ki points ) and can use reroll an attack 6 times a day. I have 18 AC and 53hp. I originally was going to be a trip build, but then the main archetype I was going to use was overruled by my DM, so then I chose to be a zen archer. I entered the story as the Wizard's long lost brother, this is my first time playing a ranged character, and to be honest I think I should've gone with the trip build I originally intended but with a different archetype ( Flowing Monk, Grippli trip and use the tongue for disarming )

I never imagined a trip build could be so powerful a part of it was ban worthy. What archetype were you planning on using?

I planned on being a human with Racial Heritage ( Halfling ) and Underfoot adept.

Doesn't seem too bad, just some boosts to your trip ability.

As the title asks, I'm interested in this spell, but I'm unsure of how to implement it properly. At first glance, it seems to be a potentially, longer lasting Hold Person, that forces you to stop moving too. If you leave, the spell is broken and the same happens if you go to 0 HP in the mindscape and the same for the opponent. So, are you essentially just trying your best to hold them inside and hope that your allies are protecting your body and destroying / apprehending theirs in real life?

I noticed that you don't have to be in the same room, just aware of them. Is this meant to be more a sort of lockdown this one guy while my party takes care of something in that area? This seems to be more the case. If it is the case, its seems quite niche then. Especially since everything in the mindscape is an illusion and they get a will save if you want to hide the way out.

Create Greater Mindscape seems much better (as it should, it is greater after all), but is the normal Create Mindscape even worth using? Or should one just wait until they can use create greater?

Maybe you could use it to message a captured PC or NPC that you are attempting to rescue. You could no doubt get more information that way. You could also just mess with someone, I think this spell is more flavor than mechanically useful. It looks like it could be fun to use though.

I'm making a Paladin for a friends upcoming custom campaign and have gotten most everything figured out except for Traits.

What would be some good traits for a Paladin? The build I'm going for is a two-hander wielding combat medic type, with a focus on Lay on Hands and Mercies. Archetypes are Sacred Servant and Warrior of the Holy Light.

As DethBySquirl said, reactionary and the other are always good. You get to go first and get some extra healing. Armor Expert might also be good if you are planning on wearing some decent armor and still want to be able to use some skills.

Nekrotanos wrote:

Had your character started putting out the ridiculous damage of the zen archer? The DM might have forced it so badly because he didn't want that in his campaign anymore. I know I had a player in Rise of the Runelords while I was DMing that played a zen archer, and it was terrible for me. I didn't try to destroy the character though, just made things a bit more difficult for them. Damn some of these characters can be frustrating as a DM, and sadly some DMs just decide to go the cheap route and cripple the character in a stupid way.

Well, probably, I was out DPSing the wizard. At 6th level I get 3 attacks at +11/+11/+6 to hit, and 1d8+8 damage, and can spend a ki point to get an extra attack ( I have 8 ki points ) and can use reroll an attack 6 times a day. I have 18 AC and 53hp. I originally was going to be a trip build, but then the main archetype I was going to use was overruled by my DM, so then I chose to be a zen archer. I entered the story as the Wizard's long lost brother, this is my first time playing a ranged character, and to be honest I think I should've gone with the trip build I originally intended but with a different archetype ( Flowing Monk, Grippli trip and use the tongue for disarming )

I never imagined a trip build could be so powerful a part of it was ban worthy. What archetype were you planning on using?

Had your character started putting out the ridiculous damage of the zen archer? The DM might have forced it so badly because he didn't want that in his campaign anymore. I know I had a player in Rise of the Runelords while I was DMing that played a zen archer, and it was terrible for me. I didn't try to destroy the character though, just made things a bit more difficult for them. Damn some of these characters can be frustrating as a DM, and sadly some DMs just decide to go the cheap route and cripple the character in a stupid way.

So recently, on a long term campaign we were ambushed by some human bandits, we killed some, some ran, and one dropped to his knees and plead for his life. My character, angered that he was attacked, killed him. The DM forced his alignment from Lawful Neutral to Chaotic Neutral. This means I can't take any more levels in monk, I want to optimize my character to my best possible ability, as I've lost too many characters and am behind on the XP train, Should I talk to him about changing alignment just for that? ( This character has been here for 2 sessions, and hasn't been unlawful beforehand ) what do I do?

Well firstly, that alignment change was pretty stupid if it was the first time you did something like that. Like the others said, at most it should have pushed you towards lawful evil, although part of neutral is balancing out the good and evil side of things so, at that, you still should have been fine.

Secondly, an atonement spell is always an option to restore your initial alignment, if your DM doesn't let you use the spell as written to spite you or whatever his reasons may be, then I don't know, I feel sorry for you and your DM situation.

Lastly, a good multi class might be ranger or fighter. It would allow you to continue progressing your archery nicely, unless for some reason you wanted to go into a spellcasting class or arcane archer and just goof around with that. I don't know if you are going to be able to recover the character concept at this point with how badly you were messed over, but you can certainly try. There are other classes that have some good features that you can run with an archery build, I believe you can even get the fighter and ranger up to the same or maybe higher level of archery as the zen archer. You would probably have to read up on that though, I am not the archery type in my group, we already have a player (my dad actually), that loves that play style.

That's a good point. I know I've played dedicated crafting builds myself a time or two, and they are fun to play.

On the flip side, as a player I've always enjoyed the fact that pathfinder (and 3.x in general) provides the rules so I don't have to ask the DM how long stuff takes, because I can work it out and then bring it to the DM for approval. So in retrospect I'd like to stay away from the "DM arbitrarily assigns a time frame" method.

For the first situation, it makes me think that crafting feats should be left in the game, but should receive a different benefit. For instance, say, having the feat grants a +5 bonus to the relevant check for crafting the item (goes up to +10 when you have 10 or more ranks in the relevant skill). That would allow specialists more flexibility when crafting to hit higher DCs to accelerate crafting or bypass requirements, etc, while still allowing anyone the option of doing so.

One idea that occurs to me to retain the dependability of the 3.x ruleset while reducing timelines is basing it off the recommended wealth table. Thus regardless of

Find out what percentage of the character's recommended wealth for their level is. Apply that percentage to two months, with a limit that they can't make items worth more than half their recommended wealth.

Which gives times along the following:

50% = 1 month
25% = 2 weeks
12% = 1 week
6% = 3 days
2% = 1 day

This would be the base timeline that assumes 8h a day of dedicated crafting. Crafting checks would be done as normal, with each minor failure increasing the time by 1 day, and successful accelerate crafting reducing it by a day. (or by half a day if it would normally take 1 day).

So items that even their character would consider to be cheap and disposable would be the matter of an afternoon of crafting, while major projects that their character would likely consider to be their greatest creation so far would take up to a month to complete.

Of course, while that looks good in theory, now I need to go...

That looks pretty solid of an idea. Just base it off the normal price of the item rather than the crafted price and I think it would be pretty reasonable.I think at lower levels that might be more difficult to run with, at fifth all weapons would take over a week to make. I suppose even if you ran it using the crafted price, at level 15 it would still take then a month for top tier items.

...is it weird that I kind of want to build and play this character now? You keep fighter bonus feats...you keep weapon training...plenty of resources to support a two-handed weapon build...you get improved skills/level.... And, you know, with one spell/potion at level 1 our retreat plan becomes "I carry the entire party out gear and all".

I'm thinking a Varisian strongman/woman traveling as a sideshow act...

Hell naw, that is completely normal. This is the funniest build I have seen so far.

So it looks like you want an unarmed strike, or spiked gauntlet build. That is, until you can get a Conductive Weapon.

Do you have your starting wealth/level?

Don't forget Channel Smite, coupling with Touch of Corruption means you can deal double damage with a single touch (costs 3 touches though) but since it's negative energy you will do oodles of damage. If the enemy happens to be good, then you also have smite. Greater Mercy (Cruelty) helps get more dice as well. If you wanted to get cute, Order of the Stars cavalier VMC will double both those numbers for 4x the dice. Gives more uses too.

Dread Vanguard is great. Most of the good paladin spells aren't avaliable to the Antipaladin, nor does it usually end up with good DCs. For antipaladins, ditching the spells is a good choice, plus the abilities of the archetype have better combat utility.

I think Fey Foundling is worded in a way that works with the Dhampir, since it refers to magical healing, not specifically cure spells or positive energy.

How does it quadruple the dice, I am looking and can't find anything that mentions that. Or is that with an archetype?

Nekrotanos wrote:

Aura of cowardice is excellent for intimidate builds, and a very good way to get your DM to hate you. You might not deal a whole lot of damage, but neither can the enemy when they are running away from you.

In what way? The issue I'm seeing here is that Aura of Cowardice only works on "fear effects", and demoralizing/shaken isn't a fear effect. So how can an intimidate build make use of it? I'm missing something here.

It is the condition that it inflicts, someone that is immune to fear couldn't be shaken by the demoralize action. Also, another trick you can use is take Mask of Virtue and Soulless Gaze to increase the fear condition (Mask of Virute is for the second tier of the feat series, you could take another but that is my favorite to combo). Combo it with cornugon smash and when you hit BAB +11 you can make them panicked in a single turn. Use enforcer as well and make them panicked for some ridiculous number of rounds with no additional save.

I'm pretty sure that any class\race combo would work (assuming that the race in question wasn't something that would draw attention to itself by virtue of rarity in your world).

The hardest would be paladins and antipaladins due to the aura class feature. Monks and Cavaliers could also have a hard time due to alignment and order restrictions. I think any class with casting would do fine.

The trick to a character working in such a campaign is to be very clear what you are going for and the kind of skills that will help them - and to encourage the group to pick complimentary skills ('bob is our lock picker - and katy is our backup and on tough locks she helps bob').

I think monks and cavaliers could work, and Paladins or Antipaladins could work depending on the alignment of the organizations. That is going to be the main thing to determine alignment restricted classes. For the characters' network, npcs that are rogues and the like would be the best flavor wise, but enforcers and that kind of thing are always there as well and they can be nearly any class.

master_marshmallow wrote:

So it looks like you want an unarmed strike, or spiked gauntlet build. That is, until you can get a Conductive Weapon.

Do you have your starting wealth/level?

Don't forget Channel Smite, coupling with Touch of Corruption means you can deal double damage with a single touch (costs 3 touches though) but since it's negative energy you will do oodles of damage. If the enemy happens to be good, then you also have smite. Greater Mercy (Cruelty) helps get more dice as well. If you wanted to get cute, Order of the Stars cavalier VMC will double both those numbers for 4x the dice. Gives more uses too.

Dread Vanguard is great. Most of the good paladin spells aren't avaliable to the Antipaladin, nor does it usually end up with good DCs. For antipaladins, ditching the spells is a good choice, plus the abilities of the archetype have better combat utility.

I think Fey Foundling is worded in a way that works with the Dhampir, since it refers to magical healing, not specifically cure spells or positive energy.

I'm aware at pre-Conductive levels the character will mainly have to suffice for just hitting things in the face with a greatsword. At level 4 I'll start each battle off with Beacon of Evil typically and take it from there, later using Conductive to apply Sicken with Cornugon Smashes for large -4 penalties.

Level is probably 1 with max starting gold per class I'd assume, usually how it goes.

Channel Smite is appetizing but it seems far too costly, especially if it's all wasted on a miss.

As for Fey Foundling, it's tempting, especially since I'm still pretty blank on a 1st level feat at the moment.

Main things so far I'm curious about are is there a way to get Aura of Cowardice to work for me, and how, and is there a way to get Plague Bringer as well. Being able to Disease myself through a cruelty sounds pretty fun, but how can I turn that against my enemies without harming my allies?

Well that is the issue I see with plague bringer, there is no way to make sure your allies don't get whatever disease you are carrying without sleeping in a different camp. Aura of cowardice is excellent for intimidate builds, and a very good way to get your DM to hate you. You might not deal a whole lot of damage, but neither can the enemy when they are running away from you.

So attempting to add it all together:

This Mythic Enlarge Person'd Orc gets to a heavy load of 277,830,696,960 pounds by my count.

Otherwise known as completely unnecessary. XD

:O how dare you call that 277 billion pound carry weight unnecessary?! What if I wanted to carry the entire world! The world is quite heavy you know, need every last pound of that precious carry weight to make it a little bit easier.

Although I guess if that isn't your plan, then no doubt, completely unnecessary.

Ant Haul would TRIPLE whatever carrying capacity your absurd Strength got you up to.

Now I'm sort of tempted to make a strongman character...

Lol, the party's looks when you just carry all the loot, and don't even go past light encumbrance.

I would point out that even if you strip the aura of courage away... that only makes him susceptible to fear attacks, you still need to have some way to cause a fear attack...

Any any spells cast or such other actions, are rounds the paladin is smiting your evil backside...

So it's REALLY situational at best. Seems an ability that that looked good on paper.

Well, that is what enforcer and cornugon smash are for, the character is built around fear so I have that all figured out.

Nekrotanos wrote:

DethBySquirl wrote:

I admit to being curious what the max possible carrying capacity for an individual PC actually is. Probably something astronomically physics-defying, of course.

If you roll stats with an 18 in strength (or assign them), and get to a 22 through orc racial bonuses, you apply all 5 stat increases, get a +6 belt of giant strength, a +5 tome of strength (forget what it is called), go pack mule as a level 20 fighter, take muscle of society, cut your losses, a masterwork backpack. That is 38 (base strength) + 10 (Pack Mule) + 2 (Muscle of Society) + 2 (Cut your losses) + 1 (MW Backpack) = 53 carry weight strength. This gives you a light of 12800 lbs, a medium of 25600 lbs, and a heavy of 38400 lbs. Have someone cast enlarge person on you, and enjoy 34048;68224;102400.

And that's not even with Muleback Cords or Ant Haul. Have those would get you to an effective 61 strength for carrying then multiplied by 3 which would get you a 353280 pound heavy load.

A mythic character with 10 ranks could additionally gain at least another 70 strength for carrying purposes through Display of Strength and Mule's Strength. So 131 Strength for carrying with Ant Haul resulting in a heavy load of a ridiculous 5,788,139,520 pounds. That's nearing 3 million tons.

Cast mythic enlarge on them, and they can pick up the empire state building, lmao.

Edit: Lol, in putting this all in hero lab, I figured out once you get past 112 strength, it glitches and just shows -2147483648 lbs for all further levels.

That's not even touching multiclass stuff like Rage and Mutagen. Even just single classing, Elritch Heritage (Abyssal) is a higher inherent Strength bonus than the tome by 1. Muleback Cords adds +8 effective Strength, and Burdenless armor multiplies the size of each weight category by 50%.

So a single single classed PC, with no outside help and a couple magic items, could reach an effective Strength score for carrying of 62, with an end result of...66,432/132,864/199,680. Which is the weight of 15 African elephants. And that's not even making him large.

So yeah, that's one hell of a pack mule.

Damn, that is pretty good. If my pack mule ever had to worry about too much weight, yours just laughs and takes all of his stuff and doesn't even come close to light encumbrance.

Can anyone please explain to me the best way to use a 'Demand' Spell?

One of the monsters in my campaign has it and I can't see any logical way to use it as it doesn't really seem to be useful.

Regards

Prux.

Demand

The gadget spec URL could not be found
School enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting]; Level sorcerer/wizard 8, witch 8; Domain charm 8, nobility 8; Subdomain torture 8

EFFECT
Saving Throw Will partial; Spell Resistance yes

DESCRIPTION
This spell functions like sending, but the message can also contain a suggestion (see the suggestion spell), which the subject does its best to carry out. A successful Will save negates the suggestion effect but not the contact itself. The demand, if received, is understood even if the subject's Intelligence score is as low as 1. If the message is impossible or meaningless according to the circumstances that exist for the subject at the time the demand is issued, the message is understood but the suggestion is ineffective.

The demand's message to the creature must be 25 words or less, including the suggestion. The creature can also give a short reply immediately.

Tell them, you should go home and stay there. If they fail, they spend the next 15 hours trying to go home. Also, with the creature needing to be familiar, just figure the monster has been scrying on them or something like that.

I admit to being curious what the max possible carrying capacity for an individual PC actually is. Probably something astronomically physics-defying, of course.

If you roll stats with an 18 in strength (or assign them), and get to a 22 through orc racial bonuses, you apply all 5 stat increases, get a +6 belt of giant strength, a +5 tome of strength (forget what it is called), go pack mule as a level 20 fighter, take muscle of society, cut your losses, a masterwork backpack. That is 38 (base strength) + 10 (Pack Mule) + 2 (Muscle of Society) + 2 (Cut your losses) + 1 (MW Backpack) = 53 carry weight strength. This gives you a light of 12800 lbs, a medium of 25600 lbs, and a heavy of 38400 lbs. Have someone cast enlarge person on you, and enjoy 34048;68224;102400.

Edit: Oh and if you are using mythic, you can strength total to 63 through those ability score increases, add on display of strength to get that to 83 you can have 819,200 lbs; 1,638,400 lbs; 2,457,600 lbs. Cast Enlarge Person for 2,179,072 lbs; 4,366,336 lbs; 6,553,600 lbs. Use mythic enlarge person for even more lulz to get 5,668,864 lbs; 11,354,112 lbs; 17,039,360 lbs. I have no clue why you would need that much carry weight, but I guess if you need to carry the tarrasque, now you can.

Could he mount it on the front of his armor? That would spread the jolt out over his body in a manner similar, possibly better, possibly worse, than a harness used today in bungee jumping or as a safety line.

Just saying. Attach it firmly to your armor. FIRMLY. So it doesn't rip out.

Oh and someone asked. You would fall a total of 205.8 meters. So in feet that is 675 ft approximately assuming gravity is the same as earth's and not figuring in terminal velocity.

Woah. Maybe my math is wrong. Though when you are falling 6 seconds is an eternity.

176.4m (equation is d=V0t+(1/2)*9.8*t^2), but still that hurts a lot. Only 578.7ft fallen, so you still take max damage. I think the pathfinder rules might be different though, I don't know if they take actual physics into account.

Edit: lol, just noticed the date on this stuff, woops.

There is a lot more than I thought to increase carrying capacity in this game. I think my favorite though is that Pack Mule archetype. That is what fighters are good for anyways, right? lol

The way I read it, it should absolutely work against Paladins.

1) They are the 'anti' paladin... the concept is the polar opposite and natural enemies of Paladin. Having an aura like that works on skeletons but not paladins seems weird to me.

2) It doesn't say anything about extraordinary abilities or supernatural abilities... and as far as i'm aware, there is no textbook definition of 'normally.'

The way I see the conversation going...

Antipaladin: All enemies are at -4 to saves vs. fear!!!

Paladin: Actually, I'm immune to fear effects.

Antipaladin: you lose that immunity when in 10' of me.

Honestly, I don't CARE for antipaladins... and I'm not sure I like this 'my god trumps your god' bit... but that's how I read intent. The aura's cancel each other out.

Yeah, a stalemate would be the best way to handle it, but what rules set likes stalemates? I was mostly using the paladin as an example because that was primarily used in the argument. As Oliver said, they are no doubt best as boss monsters due to that aura to put a little fear into the party's paladin. But I was playing him due to a concept I had with another player who would play a paladin. Now because of a flaw in party makeup, the antipaladin was left without the paladin, so that is no longer there. Luckily the tyrant archetype came out and he is still playable, as my alternate character was deemed less useful than the antipally.

Where are you finding these archetypes? The only one I see that isn't 3rd party on d20pfsrd is Knight of the Sepulcher.

There are multiple other archetypes, you just have to dig on d20pfsrd to find them. Tyrant is a simple one that fits the character better, it is from the new book Ultimate Intrigue. There are also a few others from the player companions (My personal favorite being the Dread Vanguard).

My recommendation as a DM is to use obsidianportal and track loot in the adventure log. This way you can create a loot list for each encounter that they have. It works well in my group. Because the player has access to the book (many do) I would customize my stuff. For example, replace the monsters with monsters from the bestiary 5. Just to mess with them. Stick with the theme. If doing carrion crown book 4, use deep ones. For the big guy, use the deep one elder. Just find the common theme for the adventure.

That would work, wouldn't be too complicated either. The loot list would probably be as far as he would need to go to get the cheating player settled. The additional monsters would just be a nice touch throw him off his tracks, and then if you decide to change some loot up and he wants to try adding things from the original adventure, it will be even easier to point him out.

It bypasses any natural immunity that a creature possesses. A Paladin's Aura of Courage no. Reason being, is a 1st level paladin doesn't have an Aura of Courage. But the important thing is it is up to your DM, and the player's at the table. Be advised though, Antipaladins are normally supposed to be bosses. My group, I let antipaladins bypass any immunity to fear that they possess. It's such a small aura.

A paladin at level 1 may not have it, but a paladin at level 3 (assuming they haven't taken an archetype that replaces it) will always have it. I would figure naturally would be there if that was that way, not normally. Your group ruling seems the most sensible due to antipaladins being what they are.

First off, while I appreciate the difficulty in balancing the effects of crafting on planned campaigns and that it can throw off the balance of the wealth per level vs loot received tables.

The Problem (as I see it)
Crafting, as I see it, doesn't work. Characters that take crafting feats are effectively reducing their own power in exchange for half price of certain categories of items, and the freedom to customize them. And on top of that, especially at higher levels, it takes so long to make items that characters have to take months of down time in between encounters to make use of their feat. Seems like a rather unfair way of treating characters that have spent feats to gain the ability to do so.

That being said, I'm not too concerned about how long low level crafting takes. It seems reasonable that low level characters might take days to make something, maybe even a week or two. It seems very unlikely that an epic archmage is going to take several months off to make some item that may be useful. Ideally, I'd like the general "useful item creation" to take 1-7 days regardless of what level the PCs are, with "very powerful items for their level" to take 2-3 weeks to complete, with month+ reserved for things that are pushing the limits of their crafting abilities to the limit and beyond.

My Solution (Part 1, and 2 a, b, and c)
1) Remove the crafting feats. Anything can be crafted by anyone who meets the rest of the requirements (caster level, spells, materials, etc). non-casters that want to make magic items still need to take the master craftsman feat, however.

and one of a, b, or c:
2a) Increase the crafting limit to 2'000 gc per day.

2b) Increase the crafting limit to PC lvl x 500 gc per day.

2c) Remove the cap on value per day entirely.

Caveat:
I fully understand that I will likely have to either decrease the value of the treasure they find, increase the power of their opponents, or otherwise adjust encounters upwards a bit to compensate.

Results:
Hopefully, a bit more...

So I think 2a would be the easiest way to approach it. However, at higher levels things would still take months to create even though they are around the level they should when they create the item.

2b would work, at level 20 they would have 10k a day to work with and that would let them get even the most expensive items done within a few weeks.

2c might work if you just told them how long it would take. It would also give you quite a bit of control over the items that they are working with, because if you think something might throw the balance of in your game, even with the modified creatures, you could make it take longer than normal due to the item being more complicated to make in game. This would give you the most flexibility as a DM, and would let you add more flavor to the items by making some more complex based on environment or however you would want to do it. I might even consider doing this one in my own campaigns.

Something to note however is there are crafting builds, they cripple your build otherwise, but you are damned good at building a specific set of items. A dwarf wizard with a familiar with some feat that allows them to craft with you can get somewhere around 20k done a day I believe. If you don't want your players to have to dedicate a character to that however, using one of the above options would no doubt be the best way to approach it. I do personally like the idea of 2c, especially with the flavor, and control you could implement into player crafting.

So I caught a player redhanded. Now he claims he only wanted to help by listing all the loot. What he did was copy paste all of the loot from the module we nearly finished. I figured it out when he added loot from encounters they've missed.

I'm a little bit pissed and dissapointed about this. He claims that he only looked at the loot and that he asked me for permission. (I think I'd remember a thing like that, but we were playing through Skype so I could have missed it.)

So what should I do? I think I have 3 options.
1. Boot the player from my campaign. Players are scarce around here though.
2. Change every important detail for the remainder of the campaign. Lot of work for a prewritten campaign.
3. Write my own campaign. A lot more work, but it might be more enjoyable in the end.

1 is no doubt going to be the easiest. I wouldn't recommend #2 though, that is entirely too much work. #3 would only be plausible if that is actually something you are interested in. Another option is to just kill him repeatedly until he gets the hint that it isn't okay to do that. Remember, as a DM your 1s can always be 20s.

making a servant pack mule npc. need one feat that would improve its servant-y-ness..... >.>

The only method that I know of to increase carrying capacity is to get more strength, or be a large. I don't believe there are any feats or traits that can do it for you. You could always get more pack mule npcs though, lol.

So I believe this is a fairly stupid question, but nonetheless my table managed to make it into an argument. The DM has no opinion on it because in the year he has played the game, he has learned just about nothing and reinforces that by saying every game that he is still learning the rules (not to mention making rules up on the fly because he doesn't know the system at all). So in the title, I mention the Antipaladin's Aura of Cowardice. The ability reads as follows:

At 3rd level, an antipaladin radiates a palpably daunting aura that causes all enemies within 10 feet to take a –4 penalty on saving throws against fear effects. Creatures that are normally immune to fear lose that immunity while within 10 feet of an antipaladin with this ability. This ability functions only while the antipaladin remains conscious, not if he is unconscious or dead.

The effects of this should be fairly obvious, it strips immunity to fear while you are within 10 feet of the antipaladin. Now the part of this that sparked the argument was the "normally". Now, as I see it, if the monster's stat card has "Immune to Fear" on it, then that is effectively stripped from the creature. But the argument followed that if you were fighting a paladin, or another creature that is similar where the immunity to fear is not natural, but rather supernatural, then that immunity is not stripped.

So, this did not come into direct argument in combat where it truly mattered yet, but I would rather resolve it before that happens. If the creature has a supernatural immunity to fear (Extraordinary abilities would be considered natural), is that fear stripped. The way I see it, the creature normally has an immunity before it is taken from them by being within the aura's radius. The rule should be pretty straight forward as I said before, but somehow it has managed to become an argument.

No, they don't gain partial Rage rounds back unfortunately.

Would be an interesting houserule though :3

Yeah, it would. I figured it might be that way though because of the cleric's way of regaining spells and being able to split it, although I think their entry actually mentions being able to do that.

Hello, I'm going to be playing as an evil cleric for our new campaign soon. I have already picked one domain (the Death Domain with the Undead subdomain) so now I need to pick one more. Everyone in our party heals with negative energy and since I am filling the supporter role I need to pick one with a good amount of inflict spells.

What would be the best domain for this?

Take the Undead Lord Archetype. It essentially gives you the effects of the healing domain, except it is for Undead. Cleric itself has some good damaging spells, and that would give you an advantage in healing your allies. That also covers your second domain considering the Undead Lord does not gain a second domain.

So I was just reading over the rules, and looking at the core barbarian class and I noticed that under their rage ability they have the text:

The total number of rounds of rage per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.

I am wondering if this means they could regain a limited number of rounds per day of their rage back by resting for, say, an hour rather than the full 8. I am thinking they most likely would just have to do the full 8 hours, but I figured I would ask to check if it were possible. I don't really play barbarians, so I wouldn't really know.