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Training HP has become a staple in our games and as such that is a valuable activity to convert over. But also things like retraining would be nice.

Any ideas on converting them over?

My players cheat a lot. From fudging their die rolls, to not preparing spells, to looking up creatures in the bestiary.

The first can be handled by having a more open table with it, so everyone can see everyone else's rolls. I also removed a lot of rolling (daily initiative, instead of encounter, lots of taking 10s and passive 10s for rolls, etc)

The second just requires a few instances of "you have no spells prepared, so you have no casting today"

And the last one, and in the case of what you have to worry about: Reskin things. Reskin creatures, move secret doors and traps around, etc. Toss a different trap, resistance, etc on things, ramp up or down creatures and throw the PC for a loop.

As a rules question I would say no, because a paladin must be lawful good and a vampire must be evil.

In the past I would have stated alignment is nonsense, as it kind of is. However now that I have begun looking at 5th edition, some of the bits about races and alignment really made a lot of sense to me and undead powered by necrotic energy actually does make sense that they would be fundamentally evil. Essentially their alignment is not good because they are powered by the force of evil.

That said, in 5th edition the idea is that the gods who create a thing can restrict the idea of free will for that thing. Hence alignment being built in for many things.

However, alignment is still nonsense amd going against the grain is a thing.

While it MAY depend on the god, recall that many paladins follow gods which are numerous alignment steps away from their own, which is part of the alignment nonsense in these games. So the god may care enough to pull their powers from their paladins, or they may not, or the paladin may now be more in line with the god's will.

It all depends far too much on too many things, and is GM discretion. Honestly, it would all depend on their view. Personally I wouldn't fault the vampire paladin, and would totally allow them to maintain their class, if maintaining alignment.

I have fallen sooooo out of love with Pathfinder since I started reading 5th edition. My PCs didn't know what an optimized build was, didn't break the game, and thought they were awesome. But they weren't and I really really had to be gentle with them or they would end up dying constantly (which is why they thought they were awesome).

But with 5e having the restrictions it does, reigning things in all around, it makes for a much nicer ruleset to work with, plus the difference between 1st and 3rd tier characters isn't nearly as steep.

While I cannot wait for 5e to add loads of stuff, I am really happy that it doesn't look like the bounds will be horribly broken and that keeps things balanced.

Just now learning fifth to use as a GM

There are a lot of really nice variant mechanics in the game, and Inspiration is definitely one of the nice ones. However it is another mechanic that can just be forgotten and left to rot, like any other cool minor ability points that have in the past fallen to the same fate. Personally the only real major variants I intend to run are related to additional ability scores, Appearance has always worked out well, and I imagine adding Honor and Sanity to that to be a good idea as well, with the former being similar to alignment and being under a constant potential change. Regrettably, Inspiration just feels too much like any of the other token bonuses, and will be horded until forgotten. For that kind of setup you need a game like Dresden Files which centers around it and easily refreshes it.

Probably going to be DMing soon and have browsed the books slightly... But what should I read to prepare myself for DMing? I likely won't have time to read everything as I would like to, but I have a grasp of the absolute basics (Advantage, Disadvantage, Proficiency, Character Creation) and experience from Pathfinder.

Going on the logic that the sun cannot be seen, at about 500 feet up the planet becomes invisible even when taking a 20 for many characters (DC of 2+50).

You could say it's carried by the creature and thus is invisible, but that kind of negates the tucked away aspect of the spell.

By rights the player is seemingly correct, but this negates the spirit of invisibility. Honestly, the game's mechanics don't actually cover this and it's up to the GM, personally I'd say no to the player because it sets a dangerous precidence for future use of invisibility, and negates the party's use of the spell, as well as the challenge of dealing with invisibility.

If the player is declared correct, most anything could negate invisibility, such as dust accumulating on the creature.

I'd declare the arrows not sticking inside the creature, merely cutting them. Actual injury (removing arrows from wounds, amputation, etc) are outside the realm of the rules.

Soracle
D6 hd
2+Int skills
Slow BAB
Will save is good

Spells known are the same number as a crossblooded sorcerer (so a max of 2 6/7/8/9th level spells, 3 3/4/5th level spells 4 1/2nd level spells, and 8 cantrips) these spells can be taken from either list

Select a Bloodline and a Mystery
Gain the Bonus Skills and Bonus Spells of both
Cannot cast in armor
Sorcerer Proficiencies
Eschew Materials
Take an Oracle's Curse, this never advances

At 1st level you may select to either have the bloodline's arcana, or have the Oracle's curse advance as you level
Select either Inflict or Cure spells to have automatically added to your list of spells known
At 3rd, 7th, 11th, and 15th level you may select either a bloodline ability or a revelation you qualify for by level.
At 20th level you may either choose the final revalation or the final bloodline ability.

Spells you cast can be treated as either Arcane or Divine, chosen as you cast the spell. At 3rd level you get Theurgy as a bonus feat, at 9th level you can cast 2 spells at once (as Spell Synthesis) treating one as divine, and one as arcane, at 13th, 17th, and 19th level this may be used one additional time per day.

This is quick and dirty, but the spells should come out about the same/level either should have, you have some benefits of both, but no where near as many as either.

End result should be moderately balanced for a 9 level dual caster.

Edit- As a non-"quick and dirty" build I'd :
-invent an entirely new bloodline/Mystery system based on crossovers between the two (bones and undeath for instance)
-cross over the curse and arcana into one thing and let that be chosen at first level
-have a bonus spell from a select list for each bloodline/mystery set, but only have it be the normal 9
-treat all spells as being both arcane and divine, at a certain level allow Spell Synthesis with up to 3/day

Probably allow about 5 power/revelations total, but have them be selectable from a list of about ~9-11.

I'm already thinking of cool versions of curses/arcana like Clouded Vision/Umbral, or Wasting/Undead.

Honestly I've always felt they should have a rules breaking and development pre-release.

There are people on this forum who will go through the printed text of every single page of a book, usually within the first 2 weeks, pointing out errors.

There are think tanks on the boards which will find exploits in the rules and abiguities which later need to be FAQ'd.

Save money on editors, save developer time, save heartache, simply have a PDF beta for the editor fans, have a text alpha for the think tanks, and have an exclusive pre-alpha for the loyal posters to aid in the developmental state.

Pay attention to your posters, use the resources you have available to you, and produce a better product. This was my same suggestion about the Warhammer rules, the company decided they made miniatures, not rules, tried to push up miniature sales and turned the game into a cluster------, and fantasy followed suit, now there are 3 valid rule systems for the fantasy game and a lot of people have left. Don't follow the same path, focus on using your resources and focus on your gamers, then you can build a very solid product and avoid confusion, ambiguities, and developmental difficulties. Profits will take care of themselves.

One of the group of a game I joined was an alchemist who worked at a tavern. The game was nautical (later Pirate) themed and his character lived and worked in this port bar. He had no reason to adventure amd when promised wealth and freedom, he turned it down. Ultimately he was kidnapped and brought aboard the ship as the party had no other way of getting him to join.

Personally, I shove my character into the game as someone who is from a critical game location and working as a background character within whatever group the GM has that brings the party together. In the case of the mentioned game, I was a deckhand on the ship the GM was trying to get the party on, from the city of pirates, who had left to be free of their corruption and seek an honest life. Ultimately my character was the only one with ties to 90% of the campaign.

Read the craft skill. It says the total cost of materials you need to make mundane objects. How that is divvied up is up to you.

As a PC; pay/bribe/relationship with the GM. It will be impregnable.

The system of costs for these animals is really bad, honestly. Those costs should be heavily subjective to availability, liscensing, etc. A tribe that raises rhinos for meat and hides would value them substantially less than the Menagerie of England.

The real question about magical girls, is how do I get a human being who is adept at every weapon that exists to be my familiar and how do I use null magic as my only source of magic.

I think to handle Louise a Kineticist would have been MUCH better, with an eidolon instead of a familiar, that would work for the entire Familiar of Zero world

Go faster, not bigger. Lots of magical spaces can be crammed behind doors, and those doors could otherwise be on the hull of the ship, or just fill the hold with a door or more in every 5 foot space

Actually, the smaller you can make the ship, the more places you can hide it, like in rivers. Heck, if it's pretty small you can even keep a wheel assembly on board for it, then haul it onto shore, pull some horses out of one of your magical spaces and have it become an extremely large cart.

But can it disable constructs and be 15 years old?

Planar Helm from Storm Wrack, toss a mage's magnificent mansion into the crew's quarters in sets (so each has a room) and create a permanent demiplane in the hold. Now you have an Elven Wingship (or in my games a Clipper which is faster) which is between a small castle to an entire kingdom. Everyone remains fed and happy.

For a lich's phylactery storage we use a stone or metal which does not decay in water to form a room of whatever dimmensions they desire. Put the phylactery in it with an assortment of necessary gear they may want when reformed (clothes are a must). Then we drop it in the ocean with the lich in it. They teleport to a known location, being very familiar with their phylactery room. They can teleport back in or out as necessary.

I also have rules established to be reformed with magical effects (slotless permanency added to the phylactery (as per standard rules)). If they reach a high enough level then means of preventing scrying are a must.

An impregnable fortress would have the same concept, completely sealed at a place that is very remote (built into the bedrock or dropped in the ocean, etc). The only means in is teleportation and familiarity.

If you don't want to spend forever digging a giant hole in rock or using magic, you can also just build a panic room. Place between walls in a house that is completely structurally sealed except through the only entrance. Works well in naturally built cities (like Rome, where things were built as needed and thus it was a giant mess)

If that ends up being your logic, please have someone named Kaysee who runs a caravan

Anon

I have always held that in black markets one can purchase dragons and dragon eggs for about 2k/hatchling CR for an egg (usually the starting value at auction) or 5k/CR for a hatchling to very young dragon.

But that's homebrew, however bothering your GM about it may work, as so long as slavery and black markets exist as well as semi-common dragons, you should be able to buy a dragon.

The Magic Beans thread got me thinking about asking the forum for help with my deck of many things. In total there are 200 cards, and the direction they are drawn matters (of 4 possible directions). A few cards have different effects based on the next card drawn, and the end result is about 1600 effects. The goal is to keep the deck far more random than the current few designs.

So, if you could design card effects for the Deck of Many Things, what would you design? Feel free to add in as many entries as you wish.

Try to go more toward Harrow effects, and less the extremely simple effects from the standard deck.

A tree emerges from the ground, over the course of a week it continues to grow, and plant life gradually withers and dies within 1 mile, as per the witch's blight hex. At the end of a week the tree stands at 200 foot tall, and produces 1d4 fruit. Anyone who eats one of these fruits receives a +2 inherit bonus to all ability scores. (Tree of Might)

A pea plant slowly grows from the ground, taking 1 year to fully grow. This plant must be continuously cared after, given acid flasks, alchemist fire, water, and goat milk weekly, as well as a constant source of light during the nighttime hours, and dark during the daytime hours. Failing this the plant withers and dies. Provided it is adequately cared for and this care continues the plant will produce 1d4 pea pods, each containing 3d6 magic beans on a monthly basis for up to two years after it reaches maturity. Care must be taken to harvest the beans before more pods are produced, otherwise the old pods will spill their beans, producing as many magic bean effects as the number of beans in each pod.

I tend to treat natural 20s and 1s as +-20 and let people fail or succeed spectacularly. A bit of advice though, be careful as it further encourages cheating.

As for taking a 20, that's what you get, a 20, no bonus, otherwise I'd have to also include the penalty for failure, which isn't in the spirit of taking a 20 (a lot of effort including failures to attempt a higher than average roll).

Build for high Intelligence. Invest in the knowledges, invest in Craft (Carpentry) and Profession (Engineer). Take feats/traits to boost mundane crafting.

Use those things to create and design stuff. For classes try Siege Mage, or the Construct Subdomain. Really a lot of different classes or archetypes work.

From here, just constantly use Profession Engineer to draw up schematics, knowledge checks on things like birds and wheels and screws, and use Craft (Carpentry) to make your inventions.

Not to mention that if you are evil, Unhallow can be purchased in the form of a skull, and either way, Desecrate would give it a buff, although you'd need a reliable means of the effect. Personally I feel an incorporeal with your saves and half your hit points is pretty brutal, aside from the Hit Die problem.

Actually if you really wanted to focus on it you could do some really janky save nonsense by multiclassing a lot, over 10 levels you should be able to push one or two saves to a +20

As in the Undead Subtype, yes. Not necessarily any particular one, but more their concept and theme

Any opponents hit by your shield bash are also hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack roll for the combat maneuver check (see Combat). This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Opponents who cannot move back due to a wall or other surface are knocked prone after moving the maximum possible distance. You may choose to move with your target if you are able to take a 5-foot step or to spend an action to move this turn.

So, any opponant hit by your shield bash is hit by a free bullrush attack. Does that mean that it bypasses the standard size category rules?

If that bypasses the standard rules, how does that combine with a Siegebreaker's Breaker Momentum

At 2nd level, when a siegebreaker successfully bull rushes a foe, he can attempt an overrun combat maneuver check against that foe as a free action.

Would that grant an overrun?

I can see this going a couple ways:
A) No Bullrush as the enemy is larger than one size category over your size. This is the simplest ruling, but violates the Shield Slam's wording of Any.
B) Bull Rush, but no overrun. This seems to be the most accurate based on wording as the Shield Slam wording seems compulsory, yet the Breaker Momentum seems optional.
C) Bull Rush and Overrun. This throws all size category considerations out, allowing the seemingly compulsory Shield Slam to bull rush, and then taking the optional check for overrun

Seigebreaker Fighter, use two shields. Half-Orc Ulfen Follower of Gorum. Take Shield Bearer and Shield Trained, use shield slam, get greater Overrun/Bullrush. Take and convince the fighter to take Paired Opportunist and Combat Reflexes.

During combat, both of you charge in, you shield slam, bullrush, he gets an attack of opportunity, overrun, paired opportunist, you get an attack of opportunity, shield slam, bullrush, he gets an attack of opportunity, overrun, paired opportunist, you get an attack of opportunity, shield slam...

When you have a high enough BAB, take Shield Master. The damage output between both of you will be insane

Read Stormwrack. Just default to those rules for naval affairs for the time being

I don't see how the spell would stack with itself any more than multiple castings of Death Kneel would stack. It's just basically an automatically cast, automatically hitting Death Kneel that can affect a large number of targets.

As a total aside, it's Death Knell, which is the tolling of a bell to mark someone's death. Which is really cool and taught me something new when I searched the spell a long time ago. Just passing that on.

As for the arguement: You gain the benefits of a death knell spell every time something dies to the aura. I don't see how the aura is even worth your time, the spell level, the 1 rd/level, etc if it is not stacking for the untyped bonuses. I understand the same source doesn't stack unless otherwise stated, but in this case I'd argue that stacking was the intent, for better or for worse.

They also use your Saves and BAB, hence me building a multiclass character with higher than good saves for all 3 saves, and a bab of greater than 15

I'd argue it grants the effects of Death Knell for each creature that dies due to a failed save. And would stack.

Each creature dying grants the effect of death knell, thus it's a seperate instance of gaining the effect for each death.

As a companion, though, it is completely unlike anything else. It would have been really nice if it were designed as an actual shadow version of you, or at least became a Greater Shadow at 10 SD levels

Which is true RAW, hence me saying it's an annoying point.

I can imagine, however, that half your HD or your hit die could be the intention. Hemce asking if it should be FAQ'd

As another question, what other kinds of gear can the shadow have, other than Ghost Touch armor/shield?

If one maintains armor/shield with no armor check penalty (Mithral Shirt), that can increase the shadow's AC.

When I was considering it with my awkward character build, I was trying to increase the AC, BAB and Saves of the character build. Which lead to a lot of mutliclassing, but ended with something on the order of 13/14/13, which would give the shadow not-terrible saves.

Also, a Darkskull would likely help a bit, especially if you can get desecrate as well.

That is a really annoying point, actually. I wonder if that should be FAQ'd.

Summon Shadow states that the shadow has half the hit points of your character, but how many hit die does the shadow possess for abilities which rely on a number of hit die?

So, it's been in my mind a lot lately because I really enjoy the idea of the shadow, but the forum has been really negative about it. So I'm wondering if the forum can come up with a strong combat useful Summon Shadow. The character build will be a big factor, but also tactics would heavily apply to this.

So, as a forum, can we come up with a strong Shadow?

I'm usually trying to pull off a Nightshade themed character via creating my own Sorcerer bloodline, but I think it would be better to come here and stick within the actual Pathfinder rules (not homebrew) for it. So I come to you for suggestions.

Within the standard rules, how would you represent a Nightshade as a PC? What if it could be a Gestalt character, how would you represent it then?

In what way is it not survivable? Half damage from most every source gives it about your Hit Point, it should end up with solid saves depending on how the character is built (in this case all saves are essentially over full save bonus), and you can slap some ghost touch armor with no armor check penalty on it if you're feeling friskey. Honestly it should be half, if not three quarters as survivable as you are

Only my own experience but the problem with the Shadow I've seen (one of the players in our S&S group is a Shadowdancer) is that whilst BAB and saves may scale... AC doesn't, our Shadowdancer has to have it run away after the first round or two of combat before it's destroyed almost every fight. Might be useful as a scout but I don't think the 3 level dip is worth it tbh.

Are you guys remembering to treat it as incorporeal, have you considered giving it gear (ghost touch armor)?

May need to split this off into a new topic if it continues, but I think the single question can still remain

What I do get out of extreme multiclassing is higher than normal saves, and the goal is also to pump up AC.

Also, with regards to the prior suggestion of Druid, I think I may actually do that as there is an anti-paladin which can be neutral without losing Unholy Resiliance, thus maintaining the saves while being neutral.

Please help with increasing saves/AC while maintaining the 3 levels of Shadow Dancer, which is a primary goal for the build

Covered in the first (second) post that it's homebrew and allowed

Edit to save on posts: Captain K, you mentioned no animal companions, but one thing I've been considering is Shadow Dancer, whose companion is an incorporeal undead with a BAB and Saves equal to your base. Would that remain feasible if you could maintain max saves and BAB. It's a 3 level dip, but it is based on your character, not on your class

Badbird you have a really compelling argument, but it does forego armor, which is a hit to AC. It would also suggest I invest in Monk for the AC bonus, which would drop Bard. It may be worth it, but I really got to think on that one, as there is the bonus from dancing as a Dervish to my attacks and damage (of +1). So it's a trade off that I need to weigh, but Bard 1/DD 4 would be pretty nicely and almost evenly swapped with Monk 1/Druid 4. It would add more damage and what not too... Hrm.

Edit: Wait, what am I thinking, I'd lose Paladin if I did that, which is a 3+ hit to saves with only a +2-4 return

Being a drug addict is just part of being a caster these days

It's not necessary, but it would help with damage. As is the build ends up with like 16 BAB and 11/14/11 for saves, with Dex+Int+Armor+13 for AC, and a Cha bonus to saves. I thought about going for Monk, but realized I'd need like 18 in Wisdom to cope with the loss of light armor, which spreads my stats out even more.

As for multiclassing, I'd rather add MORE classes than less, which is part of what I'm going for. Bloodrager abilities only work during rage, which is problematic

You're right. It still gives the +3 Natural Armor, though. So now to weigh if that's worth it.

Swapping Slayer with Snakebite Brawler, though.

That would drop my bab, though. If you know of any classes with a +1 bab, +1d6 sneak attack on first level, though. Plus there is resistance and +3 natural armor with the DD

Bard- Dervish Dancer: 1 level
Rogue: 4 levels for Uncanny Dodge and Evasion
Paladin: 2 levels for Divine Grace
Slayer: 1 level for high BAB and 2 good saves
Shadow Dancer: 3 levels for Summon Shadow, Improved Uncanny and Evasion
Duelist: 5 levels for BAB, Saves, but mostly for Canny Defense
Dragon Disciple: 4 levels for the +4 strength

Other than high saves and decent AC the goal is to flank the enemy with the character's shadow in melee.

So the help would come in for, increasing saves, increasing AC, and increasing the damage output while flanking with the shadow.

I was trying to consider grabbing a bunch of little abilities with a number of classes on a character, started with DD and SD, and let it roll from there, I like the idea of the character and how it would function with the Shadow, and am interested to see if the community could make it better at what it's doing.