Perhaps the lich or vampire still has a fairly mortal desire, and becoming undead was actually an unwanted speedbump in their own plan?
I could see, for example, someone working to ensure their utopia delving into dungeons for items of power, only to be contaminated by a vampire partway through. If they make it out, they very well might continue their previous plan, unrelated to their vampirality.
I'm running a solo game for a person (And he's likewise running a solo game for me).
Baron Blacksteel, if you are reading this, I respectfully ask you to refrain from continuing to read it.
the long story:
Baron Blacksteel is a 6th level wizard who has recently acquired a usable castle, which is fine, he's put appropriate work into getting it. Likewise he's building up a force of minions so that he can later on go toe to toe with a Duke. This is all fine.
He has a penchant for buying scrolls of spells way above his level, so that he can have "nuke" options when he encounters things above his CR instead of running away from it. (Polar Ray saw a lot of use)
As part of a random quest (He openly asked for a random quest so that he could get enough xp to ping) he went on a vampire hunt. I expected him to Polar Ray his way through it, but he pulls out a scroll that I let him buy four sessions ago, Geas, and not the lesser form, the proper one that allows no save. Using some other spells to get the vampire (Invisible) to reveal their position, he casts Geas with the command “Unquestionably and unconditionally serve me with absolute loyalty” before the fight gets underway. The vamp doesn't get a save, I spend ten minutes looking for a rule that casting from a scroll would have a casting time other than standard action, too far away to interrupt with an AoO. I decide the vamp gets at least a spellcraft check to recognize it (they fail) and is unable to cover their ears to block it.
Baron Blacksteel now has a pet vampire, and not just a spawn. I'd like the boards thoughts on the situation in general, but I have two key questions:
A: How much wiggle room would the vampire have with a command of “Unquestionably and unconditionally serve me with absolute loyalty” ?
B: Is it kosher to hit him with his own trick, and have one of the wizards foes teleport in, and Scroll Geas him in two rounds?
tl;dr:
I have a player that managed to land a proper Geas on a Vampire, binding them into reluctant but loyal service. They did this using a loophole in the scroll casting time rules.
A: How much wiggle room would the vampire have with a command of “Unquestionably and unconditionally serve me with absolute loyalty” ?
B: Is it kosher to hit him with his own trick, and have one of the wizards foes teleport in, and Scroll Geas him in two rounds?
The summoning rules state that you have to summon a creature into an enviroment that can support them.
Consider The Octopus: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/octopus
It's listed as an Aquatic creature, lacks Amphibious, but has a land movement speed (20 ft.)
I was in a game where the GM allowed me to summon on on the deck of a sailing ship to grapple some boarders, but thinking back I'm not sure if it's a legal place to summon an octopus too. The GM was convinced by the fact they have a land speed, but their lack of Amphibious makes me unsure.
I sure -hope- I can, those grapple checks were amazing.
I think the only exception is Summon spells; there was a ruling that they had to start on the ground (unless, perhaps, they could already fly), so no summoning Fiendish Blue Whales 10' above your enemies.
It wasn't just the ground, summons spells need to bring their creatures into an environment that can "support" them.
So for example when you summon a celestial squid, it has to land in water.
Well, as long as the dragon points his AMF to the side he's going to have attacks coming at him from, he still gets the benifits of it for at least a round or two while the casters find out that they're going to have to get clever about their casting angles.
A -really- smart dragon will have set up traps or minions to cover those extra angles.
I was working out a town using this rules, but when I went to look up the stats for a Brothel, it's listed as giving discounts to other things, but appears to lack an entry of it's own? Did it show up in a book and not make it to the SRD?
School transmutation [water]; Level alchemist 4, sorcerer/wizard 6
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components S, M (a mixture of oil and water)
EFFECT
Range personal
Targets you
Duration 1 minute/level
Paizo Peripheral
This content is from material published by Paizo Publishing, LLC, but is not part of the Pathfinder Core Rules.
DESCRIPTION
When you cast this spell, your body takes on a slick, oily appearance. For the duration of this spell, your form can stretch and shift with ease and becomes slightly transparent, as if you were composed of liquid. This transparency is not enough to grant concealment. You gain DR 10/slashing and your reach increases by 10 feet. In addition, you can pass through small holes or narrow openings, even mere cracks, with anything you were carrying at the time the spell was cast (except other creatures). Finally, you can move through water with a swim speed of 60 feet and can breathe both water and air for the duration of this effect. You are treated as if you had the water subtype while this spell is in effect.
What Whirlwind is really useful against is Swarms and Fliers. It's not often super handy on the ground, though in a tight canyon, or adjacent to a ledge, you might be able to get more out of it.
Boots of Striding and Springing might be worth looking at, and you are still allowed to put ranks into cross class skills. you don't the +3 bonus, but you can still max ranks, and at higher levels the lack of the +3 is far less painful than at the low game.
Well, if the point of this exercise is to get more attacks, then maybe instead of raising BAB, mythic could lower your extra attack penalty from 5 to 4, and then maybe even to 3 at halfway up the Tiers.
Thus, instead of getting your first extra attack +6/+1, you instead get your first extra at +5/+1, and then your second extra would be +9/+5/+1.
Ranger seems the most natural mix, especially if he takes natural weapon style for use with his wildshape ability. (This does make a very dangerous-in-battle NPCs, be aware.) The Boon Companion Feat will make most of his non-druid levels count towards his animal companion, regardless of what you go for.
Fighter is good if you want to not have to worry about the casting progression of the druid.
Rogue is powerful in it's own way, but also implies a lot more about the chars personality than other classes might. THis could be both good and bad, depending what you want.
Also, you can solve this issue in the action economy by giving the boss a cohort, pet, or minions. Boss throws trip attacks, and his posse goes to ravage the man on the ground.
As mentioned above, a hazard that affects both sides about the same doesn't affect the CR, because it's equal on both sides.
A hazard that one side can ignore, say an icy waterfall over a bridge that the water elementals can move into and out of freely, might be enough to bump the CR +1.
The converse, where the players have a defensive fortification and have to hold the walls against invading orcs, might make the CR-1, though you can always add more orcs to bump it back up if you need a hard fight.
I've never played on a hex grid. Surely it must have its own unusual/counterintuitive ways of working? What if you want to charge someone but the hex your in has a corner facing them instead of a side? How wide are cones on hexes?
As to charging, rather than going across that corner line, you'll probably lean either left or right to your first step, and then go into the square that was directly between you and the target. repeat for intervening hexes. I have an example here.
Probably a lot of the really big differences will be in the metagame, things like the expectations of how encounters are set up and when you need to be spending your consumables and such.
4e has something called a "second wind" that allows any class to self heal about half their tank. The fact PF lacks that option is a -MAJOR- adjustment, so you may want to think about how many healing potions you drop for them, and when.
As to encounters, you may want to throw two wildly different types of encounter at him early on, so he can get used to the new stuff.
And there'll be a lot of rules double-checking early on, for everyone involved more than likely.
A familiar
some cleric-like spells
Solid melee, TWF
some rogue skills
Multi classing is ok, but I think he wants too broad a build... So whats the best class that uses his 20 str the best?
Probably a melee-specced druid, with their animal companion.
If you want a challange build, you could probably run a Witch instead, harder to melee spec, (though touch spells and the Nails hex make it possible, not to mention Prehensile Hair for free hand grappling.) but the right hexes let you heal surprising amounts of damage without burning spell slots, and they come with a true familiar.
In an upcoming sourcebook, we're going to write additional material for the magic item crafting rules, further explaining and clarifying the nuances of how this works. I'm going to look over existing threads, FAQ entries, and FAQ-flagged threads, but I don't want anything to slip through the cracks, so I'm asking here: Is there anything else about the magic item crafting rules that could use more explanation or examples?
In regards to the GP costs of an item, is there going to be a disscussion or explanation of the actual physical materials that go into it?
My guess would be gems, perhaps topazes in stuff with evocation bases, and onyx-types for any necromancy spells. Precious metals for other things.
With 8 schools, a dozen cleric domains, and another dozen spell descriptors, it's far too much for one person to be able to work out with house rules.
Another thing I'd like to know would be ways for low level chars to be able to craft weaker magic items. Things like specials actions to activate them, or items that only work once per month.
Sounds workable, though careful about the really really high end stuff, in particular any spell that has an extra material cost per casting. Those may throw your curve.
CR 7-8 sounds about right, but I'd look at your players' capabilities before throwing this at them. It might be particularly rough on the martials who will be dealing with the high AC and DR, and who are more likely to be exposed to Energy Drain and targeted by Dominate. On the flip side, because of the low HP, a single 7th-level Searing Light could take this thing out.
Exactly. It'll be probably a bit too rough for the martial characters and trivial if there are a couple offensive spellcasters in the party.
Ok, so when I toss this at party, not by itself. Give some henchmen that are easy pickings for a martial char, but difficult for casters to handle.
Five zombies, perhaps? Or maybe some sort of vermin?
On a separate sheet from mine, that would be fine with me.
May I ask what you found frustrating about it?
The frustrating issue is determining the value of so many things that are shoe-horned into one package. The raptoran flight text pieces mixed with some of the other things are kinda clunky. Example: the ability to fly grants Fly as a class skill; racial bonuses to "fly" are typically (though not always) quantified in the maneuverability mechanics. (Clumsy –8, Poor –4, Average +0, Good +4, Perfect +8. Please keep in mind, this is /without/ using mechanics presented in the ARG.
Some of the custom-made bonuses and weakness are interesting, but difficult to quantify as they resemble no other pre-existing mechanics, which are an excellent foundation to build on when designing monsters, races, etc.
I hope that explains the frustration without sounding arrogant or condescending.
Yeah, i can understand how being as nonstandard as these means a lot of eyeballing balance issues with no clear answer. My own CR calculations suggested the 6-7 range, though that AC might be enough to bump it up even higher.
Which knowledge skill do you use, and what would the DC be?
The example that I'm worried about right now is cold iron in unexpected locations, like the cold iron spigots on a public fountain. (The local government really hates fey.)
My first thought was Arcana, but it seems like craft skills would be more suitable.
That is the correct assumption. I started work on it before I had the race builder rules, so I don't currently have the actual point total. The intent was to make a +0 LA race (by the old 3.5 standards), though it toes the line between +0 and +1.
A simpler solution, rather than mucking about with the item costs would be to simply assign the special items a gp value for the purpose of crafting a given subset of items. Like the bones of a master architect may count as 1500 gp worth of materials towards the cost of a headband of intellect.
That way, from a rules point of view you're just giving him "roleplaying loot", and can freely adjust gp values up and down as you need to for balance.
From a fun perspective, Celeador has some great ideas on making the new items have their own flavor, and a +2 to one of the lesser used knowledge skill or even just the flashbacks thing is likely to improve the game for the whole table.
The base race is a custom one that I've yet to show around these forums, so if you see something that does not look like a vampire thing, that's where it's coming from. I've taken the liberty of bolding the things I thought were most relevant to the CR, but I may be mis-evaluating.
Bloodwing, Pisx Vampire, 4th level Ranger CR ?? PF
This small, black winged pisx was felled by a vampire while outside the hive, and has been kept as an easily controlled, but powerful servant.
Size/Type: Small Undead (Augmented Fey)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Hit Dice: 4d10+4 (30 hp)
Initiative: +8
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares). Glide 40 ft (8 squares, 2 vertical)
Armor Class: 25 AC, touch 16, flatfooted 19 (+4 dex, +1 size, +3 studded leather armor, +1 dodge, +6 natural),
Base Attack: +4, (CMB +7, CMD: 20)
Melee: Bite +7 (1d4+3) with Energy Drain (Two Negative Levels)
Space/Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Qualities: Pisx Traits, Undead Traits, Darkvision 60, Vampire Weaknesses, gaseous form, shadowless, and spider climb
Class Features Favored Enemy (Undead), Track, Wild Empathy, Favored Terrain (Forest), Two-weapon Combat, Endurance, Animal Companion (Snake, Constrictor)
Defensive: Channel Resistance +4, DR 10/Magic, Silver, and Cold Iron. Resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10. Fast Healing 5
Attacks: Blood Drain, Children of the Night, Create Spawn, Dominate, Energy Drain, Touch of Fatigue 2/day,
Saves: Fort -- Ref +8 Will +4* (only +2 vs. mind-affecting)
Abilities: Str 16 Dex 19, Con --, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 12
Skills: Climb +13, Acrobatics +11 (21 to jump, may always take ten to jump), Knowledge(Nature) +7, Perception +8, Stealth +11, Survival +8
Feats: Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Attack, Iron Will, Toughness, Two-Weapon Fighting
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or family (vampire plus 2–8 spawn)
Treasure: Half standard
Advancement: By character class
This seems like the apparatus is not so much a true encounter, as it has so little damage as to be almost a non-threat, but more of a delaying tactic for some other sort of encounter or boss monster.
AS to calcuation of CR, it gets so little from it's theoretical HD that you can probably ignore that 20, and the damage is so low I'd ignore that too. then you have 14+7+11 / 3, or 10.6.
So yeah, probably CR 11, but with an asterisk that it's a non-standard threat type for it's CR.
I was looking at the rules for the Gunsmith feat, and I realized that this is one of the few places where players can craft at a profit.
It allows you to both bypass the normal craft check, and more worrisomely, "You can craft bullets, pellets, and black powder for a cost in raw materials equal to 10% of the price."
Now, standard bullets are about 1 GP. so this feat lets a gunslinger spend only 1 SP on his normal ammo. But if he turns around and sells that, he'll get about 5 SP for the bullets that he put a single silver into. No craft check needed, just spend a few days and you can pump out over a thousand GP for yourself.
This can somewhat throw the wealth curve at level one.
One of the houserules I use, just in case of low rolls, is that players have the option of instead of rolling their new die, to instead roll their entire pool they've gained up to that point in one big sheet crushing roll and hoping it's higher than their old total. (Possibly taking the lowest roll out and assuming it gets max instead, for the first level boost.)
I've been pondering some oddball builds, probably for use on an NPC, but maybe a PC if I ever get the shot during a campaign that it'll make sense in.
The Witch gets a hex they can take at level 1, Nails: that gives them a pair of claw attacks.
SRD said wrote:
Nails (Ex): The witch’s nails are long and sharp, and count as natural weapons that deal 1d3 points of damage (1d2 for a Small witch). These attacks are secondary attacks. If trimmed, the witch’s nails regrow to their normal size in 1d4 days. Source: Ultimate Magic
The barbarian can pick up a rage power, at 2nd level, Beast Totem (Lesser), that also gives you a pair of claw attacks:
SRD said wrote:
Beast Totem, Lesser (Su): While raging, the barbarian gains two claw attacks. These attacks are considered primary attacks and are made at the barbarian’s full base attack bonus. The claws deal 1d6 points of slashing damage (1d4 if Small) plus the barbarian’s Strength modifier.
Now, If I multiclass and take both, is there some rule for letting them stack? I see a couple options:
A: The rules are mean, no benefit and it just wastes a rage power choice.
B: The Claws are secondary by default, but while raging they up to primaries, and don't take the -5 penalty, (or even the -2 penalty, as you now qualify for the Multiattack monster feat), for the duration of the rage.
C: Not stated anywhere specific that it does, but I can see the argument that the second one emulates the Improved Natural Attack Feat, and increases your damage die type.
D: The nails hex never actually said they were claws, so hilariously the two stack such that you actually have four natural attacks for your full attack action, two rage claws as primary, and two nail attacks as secondary.
On a related matter, would the same ruling also apply to a half Orc with the Toothy alt-trait and the Animal Fury rage power, which grants a bite attack in a similar manner to Beast Totem (Lesser).
It seems like white haired witch would be much better if you only lost half your hexes, instead of all of them. Perhaps roll the lvl 2 power (constrict) up to the level 4 power (trip), which frees up level 2 for a more traditional hex. I could even handle it if I had to, at level 4, pick between either Trip or Constrict.
Similar setup for the even levels upwards, of course.
I was looking at the rules for Bleeding Attack and couldn't figure out the max timer on it.
PFsrd said wrote:
Bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or through the application of any spell that cures hit point damage (even if the bleed is ability damage).
So clearly a heal spell or first aid kit can stop it, but other than that it would appear to just go on infinately, for the rest of the targets life. That seems like it's an omission, no time-based deactivation.
Otherwise you can stab a farmer, and then absolutely nothing can save him after you skip away singing a song. Trolls have it even worse, as their EX regeneration doesn't count as a spell, meaning they're stuck with the bleeding until the end of their potentially very long days...
You already can create potions of higher level spells. You just need Craft Wondrous Item for it.
[Create a one-use item based on the spell that is use-activated by drinking it...and you have a potion.]
So wait... that works for wands too, doesn't it? So you can just emulate any other crafting feat with a creative use of Craft Wonderous? So i've just been wasting my feat slots taking anything else?
It might have something to do with ranger favored enemies, the Animal subtype is a rare encounter in a lot of games, and if you had to further worry about specific subtypes it would become a totally useless selection.
The moment I had a player start to abuse* this, I would have the two bodies roll opposed Mental Stats to see which one holds onto the soul that now finds itself in two parts. (Probably Cha, but I can see Wis being used, or even Int for wizards)
Then whichever body losses is left as a soulless husk, unable to cognate.
Naturally, Demons are quite interested in such things. :)
I vote in favor of the "After an 8 hour restcycle," interpretation, assuming it's an ability recharge, and that the party isn't intentionally abusing that to full-rest twice in one day.
Tactically, if you don't want it to seem like the enemies are ignoring the heavy guy, consider using large numbers of weaker enemys, such as goblins or the smaller elementals, any vermin type.
Sure, the fighter will love tanking a dozen enemies, but it should very clearly demonstrate the issue to the party as a whole when everyone is getting swarmed by 40ish goblins.
