Non-Lethal for Ransom's page

Man, if only. Alas, we have no time to prepare such a spell, even if one did exist.

Never heard of it. What's Fairy Tail?

Yeah, I won't be missing him. I grabbed a monkey for silly character reasons and he has been pretty useless so far.

Imbicatus, what is familicide?

Touch of Slime wouldn't work too well. We have a blaster Sorc in the party that just loves burning things.

Oh, calcific touch is a good one! No time to shop for items, unfortunately, but this could finally be a use for my otherwise largely-useless familiar.

If a familiar is holding a charge on a spell like that, I probably can't cast any other spells though, right?

Anyone else have suggestions?

Hey, all. I thi is a pretty fun situation, and I am new to this whole "wizard" thing, so I thought I would see if anyone has any advice on this matter.

In character, our party knows that we are about to face a weakened, colossal, green dragon (probably CR 11 or so, but colossal) and we just gained level 8. As players, we know that this will be our last session in this campaign, so the two spells I take should apply directly to this battle if at all possible.

My wizard is a very focused Conjuration wizard with Augmented Summons and Greater Spell Focus (Conjuration). I already have SM4 and plan to summon 1d3 lantern archons throughout the dragon fight. Forced to learn a Conjuration spell, I may just go with Black Tentacles in case of minions, but I really want my other one to affect this dragon!

Should I just take a lower-level blast spell like Scorching Ray and use my 4th level slots for summoning? Are there any save-or-sucks that would take a Ref save? Is my lantern archon swarm a bad choice of summon? Any advice in general?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into those. Anyone have any other favorites?

I am a big fan of Pathfinder. I love the depth of the rules and the vast array of options and builds. I love the artwork in the books and I love the SRD.

That said, all the depth and rules and options makes it a difficult game to teach. I have a friend that has never played a tabletop before and I offered to help guide her through a summer Pathfinder game my friend is running.

Trying to explain all the different numbers to her made me wonder what other, simpler systems are out there and are any good. I find myself cursing the large number of magic items that are available and that any given character has to buy, the large number of spells and of class and monster abilities one has to be aware of if planning to make or to play through various encounters.

It may be a faux pas to ask this sort of thing on Paizo's forum, but I really like the community here, so I figured I would do it anyway.

What are some fun, simpler RPG systems that a Pathfinder player might enjoy? What do you like about said systems? How are they to GM?

More recently, and more legitimately, I played a Pathfinder campaign over the course of a school year with some random guys that got together online. The GM was really great at narration and at making us feel like the things the party did were significant and badass and like we were the ones carrying the story (most times). The problem was that we had one player that liked being a caster, and the GM had a number of preconceived notions and house rules from previous games that just did not work out well.

From a Minor Image of a stone wall not providing concealment because it is a Glamer in our first session, this player and this GM would argue about rules, the GM would nerf various spells and strategies, the player would get mad and argue against it. Every. F&$@ing. Week.

After the glamer houserule the poor guy had to rework his whole character. That continued on-and-off for the whole game, including a character death with no dice rolls. I liked that GM and that campaign in a lot of ways, but I cannot stand it when a GM would rather hold a character back by changing rules than by working within them.

Oh man, I have a few.

There are probably a hundred times when I got shafted by DM rulings in AD&D 1E just because I was the DM's little brother and he would make all my characters for me, even when I didn't want him to. I mean, all the classes and races we played were made up by ourselves or him, so he got to use his powers to make mine, and the other player my age, the weakest or most useless two of the group consistently.

The best example was when the other youngest player was missing for a session, and my brother had me play as both my and the other kid's characters. These siege towers were slowly lumbering towards our city, but getting very close. Out of desperation, I had Sam's extremely strong character try to slow one down by pushing it from the other side until we could think of a way to stop them.

My brother informs me that the siege tower continues in its path and runs the character over, rolls a random handful of dice and declares Sam's character dead. Did I make a dumb move? Yes. Should I have gotten some leniency for playing with an unfamiliar character, or for being seven years old? I think so. Man, if only we had known how saving throws worked!

TL;DR My older brother always picked on me with his DM powers, to the point where he killed off absent friends' characters to make the players mad at me.

So, Wraith, you would play it like a burst centered in the caster?

I was wondering if there was a clear ruling on how Reach Spell interacts with spells with a target descriptor of "creatures touched," such as Resist Energy, Communal.

The Reach Spell feat (or Rod) would increase the range from Touch to Close, but would this casting require actions like a touch spell, in that you can touch up to 6 creatures with a full round action using separate rays, or would it act more like Haste (another Close range communal buff) and just affect the creatures within a burst radius?

Personally, I lean more towards the latter, but as the caster of this spell, I have a bias. My hesitancy with the former is that you can hold charges of a touch spell, but so far as I know you cannot do so with any Close range spells.

Thanks for the advice, everyone! Lots of solid tips.

I had been toying with the idea of being invisible all the time and using indirect spells, but debuffing does sound like a solid option as well. I guess I could just pick up a Mirror Image for myself and hope for the best, eh?

Speaking of my indirect approach, are there any Summon Monsters III or lower that have improved bull rush? It could make my Creat Pit that much better. I have a pretty good idea of what summons are best at general combat, but do any of you ever use them for bull rushing or grappling, or should I stick to flanking and trample?

PSusac, I actually just learned Aqueous Orb, and I look forward to adding your suggestion to my list of its uses.

Sorry Cap. Darling, she already took Fiend Totem for extra offence.

I can't believe I left Enlarge Person out of my list! I have totally been doing that. Thanks again, everyone!

I have a bit of a problem. Our party's tank character is currently a barbarian with decent Con, and I want to keep her alive (after all, this is her first campaign). I plan to push her into taking Guarded Life, since we just reached level 6.

The real question here is what can I, as a Conjuration-Schooled Wizaard, do to help her out? My INT is 24, so I get plenty of 1st-and-2nd-level spells per day. I can think of a few things to help:
1. Summon a monster to soak up some hits
2: Bear's Endurance (or Cat's Grace?)
3: Haste, obviously, though +1 to AC isn't great

Where else could I go from there? What are some other options? Are there any good low-level Wizard spells I missed? Could my monkey familiar Aid Another, with no reach, and would that be idiotic?

Sorry if this kind of thread already exists. I couldn't find it. Also, PLEASE do not post build advice. We JUST passed the point in the game where the GM is no longer okay with tweaking characters. Wouldn't you know that only after that point do I discover the Invulnerable Rager archetype? But I digress.

Any help is appreciated!

Is the issue that you don't think the party has a sound grasp on tactics, or just that you want to add flavor?

In either case, I don't know any of those particular classes well enough to give a blow-by-blow suggestion, but giving orders on the fly usually does a good enough job of projecting leadership.

"Brothor, take out that cleric!" Or "Malgris, go flank the troll with Hadlin!"
Just shout enough when your friends are taking their turns, and they might not listen, but it gets the air of leadership across.

I know that doesn't answer your question, but if someone actually could they would probably need more information. Telling us what feat trees your party members are invested in would go farther than telling us their alignments. In general, I think you folks have to find your strengths and figure out your own tactics.

Hmm... Good ideas, everyone! Sohei's Ki Weapon and Brawler's feats and Close Combatant each sound like good alternatives to standard Monk.

As of now, were to actually play this, I may just go with Brawler. Close combatant gives a reasonable boost to unarmed combat, and taking the TWF feats seem less complicated than waiting to depend on a Flurry with my guns. Of course, I would still have to take Deflect Arrows at some point.

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Why do I find this stupid idea so inviting?

Drbuzzard, your build is pretty awesome, and equally ridiculous as my Kung fu Pistolero.

TLO3, that is some solid advice, but not quite what I was hoping for. While that does lend itself to a numerically sound build, min-maxing isn't really my goal. And yes, revolvers would simplify things. I assume the GMs I usually play with wouldn't allow advanced firearms.

Here are the kinds of questions I would like answered.
Were one to attempt this TWF, Quick Draw Pistolero/Monk, how many levels of each class would be ideal to take, do you think?
Would there be any crossover between the two classes' abilities? Uses of Ki that would help the shooting? Uses of grit that would help the fist-fighting?

Also, any relevant items. In my current game I keep slapping my forehead because I just don't know about all the good items out there.

Funny thing is, this procedure is what actually was done with the pistols of the day. Pirates back in they heyday used to carry a significant brace of pistols, and would keep pulling a new one for new targets. Eventually they would switch over to a sword.

Though an interesting idea would be throw anything, though I'm not sure how much damage you might get from a pistol used as a thrown weapon.

While not what I was originally going for, that is an awesome idea!

Another thought, are there any items that could help with retrieval? In a pinch, I would rather not leave 5,000gp of pistols behind. Are there any Mage Hand effect items?

Hey, everyone! I had an idea that came from several other ideas lately. Looking at Pistoleros, I read a thread where everyone was emphasizing free actions and free hands needed to full attack.

So, I had the idea to instead just take Quick Draw and drop a bunch of discharged pistols. After all, you can buy 6 masterwork pistols instead if 1 pistol+2, right? Then you don't have to worry about rapid reload or alchemical cartridges, except for maybe 1 good enchanted pistol for when the burners run out.

From there I remembered "The Matrix" and how that's basically what Neo and Trinity do at the end, and realized that this would be an awesome character theme. Burn through your pistols, then get in there and go fisticuffs!

EDIT: So, I am thinking this would be a Gunslinger(Pistolero)/Monk dual class build.

Anyway, are there any suggestions for pulling this off? Good ideas for what kind if feats I could take (TWF and ranged feats would leave this pretty starved, I know), or any suggestions about anything else?

Thanks in advance!