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Orc Barbarian 1/ Fighter (Cyber-Soldier). Originally a member of a tribe far from Numeria, he was captured by low templar during a skirmish and sold to slavers from Nisroch, where he eventually was given over to the tender cares of the kyton who live beneath Numeria. After months of experimentation, they eventually tired of him, and allowed him to escape, but unbeknownst to him, with a tracker chip embedded under his skin..and only after taking an arm during a particularly horrific test of orc physiology. This one armed-orc wandered blindly, before stumbling into one of the other two party members I have envisioned, who saw the missing arm as an opportunity to begin constructing a perfect weapon...which is all this Orc wants to be now. He now wants to perfect his body with metal and return to the kyton vaults to unleash his vengeance...

Human (support class of some kind / party face / arcane spellcaster) - A former member of the Technic League, he was raised in Starfall and his talent was apparent from an early age. He was sent (along with his brother) to live and train under a senior Technic League member, his uncle, to harness his ability . Rare amongst members of that organization, his uncle was mostly interested in plumbing the depths of the wondrous technology found in and around the Silver Mount, and wanted merely to study...until the day he ran across a cybernetics lab that was unknown even to the League..he feared if he revealed its existence, the League would appropriate it (a justified fear) so he kept it hidden...until the day his nephew returned from afield with a certain one-armed orc with a League-allied kyton tracking chip under its skin...the vengeance of the League was swift and terrible. His kindly uncle was dismembered, only the head was saved and incorporated into a horrid undead robot monstrosity (for those of you who have read Terry Brooks' novel Antrax, you know what I'm thinking of here.)..both as an experiment, and as a lesson to those who would withold secrets from the League...

...and Human Gunslinger (Techslinger) - the face's brother, a carefree "black sheep" who was sent away mostly so the family would have one less mouth to feed, times are hard in Starfall after all. Having always had uncanny accuracy with the old family crossbow, he took naturally to the guns of a traveling merchant from Alkenstar who happened through Starfall. He was so good, in fact, that in exchange for demonstrating the merchant's wares (more accessible than the jealously guarded weapons of the Technic League), he was given an old, valueless, beat-up weapon to have for his own when the merchant departed (or was forced from by the League) Starfall for more lucrative markets..always the outsider, he adopts an "I don't care" attitude regarding the opinions of others, yet he resents the approval given his brother by his late uncle due to his arcane talent...likely to put himself at risk to prove himself in a fight, he wants to fight the League both for the murder of his uncle, and to tweak an elitist society of which he can't be a part...

So there are a number of side plots available for this party, finding a cybernetics lab will be key later on, as will the acquisition of whatever tech weaponry the Gunslinger focuses on. Fighting the kytons, I have no clue if that factors in to the AP at all, but if it does, that's going to be awesome as well... and adding the undead uncle as a later challenge (think an iron golem that can cast spells) will be a powerful moment for them all.

I'm likely to be running this AP as the GM, and if the players want to play this party (I think they'll jump at the chance), I'm going to give the orc a cybernetic arm for free.

What you need is an investment in these characters as people. Write up a back story for them, where they're from, their family, childhood, significant events that drove them to become adventurers, etc. If you know your DM is doing a certain story, tie your characters TO that story in their background somehow, it will make your DM happy as well as make things come more alive for both of you. Accents are great, to differentiate between talking in character and out of character, but asking yourself "what would my character do?" before taking an in-game action is probably the best way to start. Once you have answered that question, then ask yourself "And why would he do it?" and you start fleshing out a character's personality. Referring to your character by name will help too. Instead of saying "I will attack the orc." Saying "Havendred attacks the orc." will automatically bring to mind an image of your character attacking the orc. That's another small step in making the character become more than just numbers on paper for you. I know that since I've started taking these steps with my Cleric, my enjoyment has doubled at least. I wrote up a two paragraph back story for him, tied it to the campaign we're running, and gave him some quirks and some future hooks and unresolved issues the DM can choose to work into his campaign if he wants (most DMs love doing that kind of thing if it's not terribly distracting from the main story). He woke up after being the slave of a trio of nereids for months along with his friend / mentor, surrounded by bodies of goblins and his friend along with the nereids. And he cannot remember anything from those three months. And now my DM has that story to work with and tie into the campaign if he chooses, and I have a greater sense of who the personality is I'm portraying, why he feels and acts the way he does, and what his goals are. Once you start doing that you might just find yourself growing attached to these collections of numbers on paper and wanting to see how their stories turn out.

Also, I'd like to direct your attention Here for a lot of good tips I used when I made my minionmancer. He's only level 4 at the moment and without an undead retinue thus far, but there are definitely two dead owlbears that will soon be joining the group..

A group that really tries to play their characters.. -wistful look-

In any case..I would suggest first of all talking to the paladin's player out of character about this and how you want it to resolve. If it's not causing actual "enjoying the game" issues for anyone it could be a fun thing to try to work through. Are you bored with the ranger? It sounds like you're kind of just looking for an excuse to play something else at this point. Make sure your DM is okay with that and won't passively aggressively take it out on a replacement.

1 - This is what you and the paladin player need to discuss out of character. What will be the most interesting and fun for both of you?

2 - not particularly. It's just gravy, honestly anything you replace it with in this group would be fine. an arcane caster might even be better.

3 - Well, how you choose one is based on a few things. If you enjoyed the conflict with the paladin you can pick something sort of the same.. if you want more harmony you can pick something more morally in tune with the rest of the party. Conflict like that CAN be fun in a party if everyone is on board with it, or it can be a source of annoyance. You know the people you're playing with better than I do. From an optimization standpoint, replacing it with a full arcane sorcerer would round out the party pretty well.

Finally, I sat down and tried to work up something with both Shadowdancer and Horizon Walker... I'm not sure I love the result, but you tell me what you think. It's way off the original concept of a drow that can drop darkness anywhere and teleport into it, but it's more reliable.

It's a lot like your build, williamoak. One less BaB and the addition of hide in plain sight and a shadow companion. What do you think of it?

We love Pathfinder, at least I do, and Paizo managed to get a lot of things right. Eventually however the rules will need to be updated and things will have to evolve or risk becoming stagnant.

So what are some changes that you would like to see in the future that go beyond what simple errata can cover?

Things I'd like to see!

- A complete focus on skills, perhaps a further condensing of rarely used skills. Combining Fly with Acrobatics, combining Climb and Swim and call it Athletics, Combining Knowledge History and Nobility (probably still wouldn't take it.), putting appraise in the toilet. Most importantly detailing the skills and making sure they work fluidly for all 20 levels.

- Make Feint based on CMB vs CMD, have a feat line for it like trip does.

- Create a crafting system that is fun and makes sense, not just an after thought

- Clearly defining and seperating feats into categories that make sense, and giving every character bonus fluff feats or non combat feats. This would really help flesh out characters and promote RP.

- Bring back the darkness. Every creature in the world of Galorian has either low light vision or darkvision save for Humans, Halflings, and maybe a few other things that have some other sense that trumps darkvision. This is why stealth is useless now, concealment no longer exists really. Low light vision should be rare, darkvision should be stupidly rare and saved for things that would have it based on ecology. Also, light should cost resources, not just endlessly cast on stones by a cleric and slinged down a hallway.

- Class Balance, with some good editions to prestige classes or doing away with them completely in favor of base classes or archtypes.

-Facing! Rules that make it matter, and the benefits and drawbacks of it!

I haven't read this entire thread, just the OP. I'm not sure that Pathfinder NEEDS a 2.0, but there are nonetheless some things I'd love to see.

1. Balancing melee with ranged as a general philosophy. Ranged attacks are so good, there's almost no reason to try to get into melee. Melee is hard, staying in melee can be hard, it should be rewarded.

2. Better usage of skills, like the OP said. I'd like to see almost every skill have a combat use. Since, at its core, Pathfinder is a combat based RPG. Make skills directly affect your damage in some cases, or in others your attack roll, or let your Handle Animal check affect some aspect of your companion's combat ability. There are lots of things to do with this. Make Skill Focus something we WANT to take!!

3. As the OP stated, class balance. We're all pretty much in agreement that Rogue and Monk are quite underpowered, while Summoner and full casters are probably over powered. Make playing a monk or a rogue not feel like a bad choice!!

4. More intuitive prestige classes and multi classing. I know a lot of the pathfinder crowd has a visceral reaction to prestige classes (and after the ridiculous 3.5 bloat on them I kind of understand), but they shouldn't be intentionally underpowered. We don't need MORE, just BETTER. Also, make the crazy jack-of-all trades characters fun and viable for the people who love their cleric / bard / druid / fighter. Maybe make class features advancable / buyable as feats. The Animal Ally chain from Faiths and Philosophies is a great example of this kind of thing.

I'm sure I'll think of more later. Overall though, I'm very happy with the Pathfinder system.

I think it really all depends on what you want to accomplish with it. If you're optimizing, I don't think you need Spell Focus (necromancy) and certainly not Skeleton Summoner or Undead Master (as discussed Here the feat is sort of a trap. And the cleric archetype DEFINITELY is a trap. Now, these things are great for flavor, just short on results. If you're going LE or CE, and you're going cleric, consider Sacred Summons to save on action economy.

I LOVE Agent of the Grave. It's completely set up so you can staff a small keep with the corpses of your former associates and business partners. I think I'd consider a Bones Oracle, so everything is keyed off of your Charisma. At 15 point buy, you can't really afford to be MAD at all. And obviously don't forget to take Magical Knack as a trait for whatever class you go with to get back the lost caster level from Agent of the Grave.

So for a character like this, with an Oracle of Bones, I might go with :
Str 11 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 18. Dumping Int if you feel the need to dump a stat, I prefer not to. If you want Sacred Summons (a feat I am enamored with) you have to be a cleric for the aura class feature, and you could distribute like : Str 10 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 8 Wis 18 Cha 14. Play an aasimar to buff the Cha to 16. You can either take the Undead Lord archetype or not, but the Undead domain kind of disappoints, and there are some really cool powers in the other domains (my necromancer cleric has the Protean and Travel domains and I love both of them) Also, hold off on taking Command Undead as a cleric until level 3 or 5, unless you are 100% SURE you'll be able to use it before then. I am playing in a Kingmaker campaign at level 3 and we have yet to find our first undead. So I'm waiting until I can actually animate things to take the feat.

Enlightened responses? Well, I'll try to be the next best thing. Good build suggestions, I'll try. Okay, sure. You've got very good stats. Let's give 1-20 a shot feat-wise. I love the Magus (though I usually prefer Kensai and Bladebound) but this combination is extremely intriguing too. You got Shocking Grasp and Shield along with Color Spray and Enlarge, so you're set there. I guess your traits are set, which is kind of sad. We'll fix that with a level 1 feat.

This build gets you a ton of hexes, while still dabbling in the Intensified Shocking Grasp madness. Pearls of Power are your friend when you give up spell recall. Just be aware that the build I've presented utilizes the two cheesiest hexes in the game, Slumber and Ice Tomb, and your DM may or may not hate you for them. Just don't use Slumber EVERY FIGHT and you should be fine. It's still hellaciously useful though. Fortune and Misfortune are so good early and late. Ice Tomb, well, it just breaks things. Retribution is interesting since you're going to be in melee a lot.

For gear, you obviously want to invest in that quarterstaff. Getting defending onto it could be quite useful since your AC is going to be kind of low for a while. Other gear would be Celestial Armor, and Pearls of Power. Those things are just so good for you.

Anyways, this build is just something I came up with on the fly, use it as a starting point. I'm sure there are things that escape my grasp here. But anyways, good luck and happy hunting, will be following this thread!

Sissyl wrote:

Don't.

In general this is my advice, but this a a rotating DM case. However, OP do note your PC can be a stay at home NPC during the times you DM and then go along when you are playing.

A good idea in these sort of campaigns is to have ALL the PC's level at certain points. Don't use XP.

Definitely take this advice, both pieces of it.

My GM let me re-make my cleric, and he sought out my old cleric and drowned him in a river as a sacrifice to Hanspur...your paladin could be the victim of an evil cleric who offers to help him atone, yet murders him, robs him, and raises him as an intelligent undead to return to haunt the party. work with your GM, and it'll help your chances if you come off as being not bitter about your paladin.

Thought more about it today at work. Yeah, your character was thought about on a company clock! The more I think about it, the more I really love the idea of having a familiar for you. Mostly for the RP reasons, but, having a Lyrakien familiar would just fit so well.

Feats by level, familiar build:

Alignments should be ejected from the game as a game mechanic.

Keep whatever you wish lore-wise, but no alignment-based restrictions should be placed on anyone, which permits people to play their character without needing to justify their actions.

What a chaotic viewpoint :) To each their own I suppose. I love alignments, because they give me a baseline for how to roleplay a character, otherwise, I'd just roleplay every character like my own personality. It's an old argument though. At least we've shifted away from some attitudes from the 80's and 90's (2nd edition) where it was thought that you should never let players roleplay "evil" characters. I love that one of the pre-set characters for one of the adventure paths is Lawful Evil.