Paxon's page

A group of us have been through a few books of the RotRL AP and we're veteran RPers but very new to Pathfinder. We find most of it very good but think that some of the rules are puzzling or unnecessary. Some general thoughts we've had for house rules so far (these haven't been implemented, simply bandied about as suggestions):

- Drinking potions are a move action.
- Standing up is a move action and does not provoke an AoO
- Requirements for fighter levels for all feats are removed. (BAB requirements remain).
- Rogue Talents are fairly underwhelming.
- The design of most of sorcerer bloodlines is infuriating/baffling.

I think the biggest concern is to make sure you get a good price.

I think there's a huge inherent flaw with playing a DD/melee character, namely that you lack the armor to stand up at melee and you have to try to cast through concentration checks all the time. This means that you're either going to be standing back and blasting (in which case you should have been a pure sorcerer) or at the front fighting (in which case you should have been a pure barbarian).

The best build I've been able to put together is a Bard(ArcaneDuelist)/DD that focuses on missile damage. You can use songs to buff and keep out of combat with your missile focus and you can cast spells. The buffs from arcane strike help to offset your BAB penalty, plus go really great with missile damage. I'd only take 4 levels of DD, personally, just enough to get +4 (!!) strength, some extra armor and breath weapon.

Has there been any discussion in this thread about optimizing for a BlasterCaster™? If not, that's something I would like to discuss, maybe in a separate thread. Or maybe someone can link me to an already-existing thread.

I love goblins. I want to play a goblin for the Carrion Crown AP. My GM, however, is somewhat against the idea, reminding me that monstrous humanoids will more or less be killed on sight in this AP. Be that as it may, what can I do to try to survive? Currently I am thinking some sort of bard-goblin with good disguise + using disguise self spells.

Any other suggestions?

If I'm hearing the din of the crowd correctly, the masses are clamoring for a Treatmonk Guide to Mustaches.

FWIW, I remember a discussion about Lead Blades and Enlarge size bonuses not stacking. I could be wrong. You could also invest in some Vital Strike feats, if you wish and work on trying to get Deadly Stroke although that's a little feat intensive.

I'd like to bring this thread back on topic: How does one optimize a mustache?

I had a lot of fun with a quasi-suicidal and revolution-fermenting cleric of Milani. You get to think that you're a reincarnation of a martyred saint (while the rest of the party rightfully questions your sanity) and also access to some really great domains. I took Liberation and Azata which is an amazing combination.

In our newbie RotRL campaign, we recently came across of Ring of Spell Storing and we are having some trouble figuring out who exactly can use it.

A minor ring of spell storing contains up to three levels of spells (either divine or arcane, or even a mix of both spell types) that the wearer can cast. Each spell has a caster level equal to the minimum level needed to cast that spell. The user need not provide any material components or focus to cast the spell, and there is no arcane spell failure chance for wearing armor (because the ring wearer need not gesture). The activation time for the ring is the same as the casting time for the relevant spell, with a minimum of 1 standard action.

Which of the following scenarios is feasible under this description (note the bolded part:

A. A level 5 wizard imbues it with fireball and uses the ring to cast fireball.

B. A level 5 wizard imbues it with fireball and a level 1 wizard uses the ring to cast fireball.

B2. The level 1 wizard must make a UMD check.

C. A level 5 wizard imbues it with fireball and a level 1 fighter uses the ring to cast fireball.

C2. The level 1 fighter must make a UMD check.

*****

A is clearly possible. However, B is only feasible if one follows the general wand/spell trigger items wherein the caster level isn't important so much as the fact that the spell is on the spell list. C is what I have interpreted from reading other threads and what has been referenced from the general history of the item in past versions as well as the explanation for the relatively large cost (relative to say, 3 level 1 pearls of power).

Any thoughts on the correct use of this item? My two-handed fighter's dream of casting shield on himself hinges upon it.

I don't think its fallacious to suppose that one big attack does more damage than many multiple ones for several reasons, not the least of which is the scaling of strength bonuses and power attack. In addition, one has to consider that DR is significantly less of a hindrance to a person dealing lots of attacks, than many small ones.

That said, I think it is very situational. If you are fighting a monster with very high AC, for example. One big attack might be better since the odds of you hitting with multiple follow-up attacks might be fairly low. On the other hand, if you are fighting something with relatively little AC the advantage to having multiple attacks probably is greater.

I just started a 5th level Fighter who is going to be focused on a big, sword wielding bruiser type.

Some of my thoughts:

- Vital Strike: I think is probably O.K. against big, bad bosses where you have one guy to focus down and they have great AC. Otherwise, you lose too much damage by not being able to get multiple attacks.

- Deadly Stroke: Too situational for me to like it, and you're also giving up your full attack. There are plenty of things that aren't going to be too impressed by your intimidate and ergo, render this feat useless. Not to mention you have to spend a round simply intimidating then.

- Trip Path: Great if you have a trip weapon. I am very worried about the possibility of having to lose your weapon however. Hopefully you've got a backup ready to go.

- Two-Handed Warrior vs. Normal: I initially spent a lot of time debating between this. The only two parts I really like are the option to get a free Bull Rush/Trip(?) and the Greater Power attack. Ultimately, however, I don't think its worth losing the Armor Training, movement is just too important.

The build I am going to go with:

Human (L5): Str: 20, Dex: 12, Int: 13, Con: 18, Cha:

L1 Power Attack, Cleave, Iron Will
L2 Combat Expertise
L3 Shield of Swings
L4 Weapon Focus
L5 Weapon Specialization
L6 Second Chance
L7 Lunge
L8 Improved Critical, (Trade Sh. of Swings for Combat Reflexes)
L9 Stand Still
L10 Critical Focus
L11 (??)
L12 Bleeding Critical, (Trade Cleave for Gr. Weapon Focus)
L13 Crippling Critical
L14 Critical Master
L15 Greater Weapon Specialization

Beyond the general critical stuff, I wanted to highlight one thing:

Second Chance: I'm amazed this feat doesn't get more press. You can basically read it as: "If you miss your first attack, immediately take your second attack with full BAB." Doesn't that strike anyone as ridiculous? It might not be as useful later on when you have more attacks, or against some lightly armored opponents, but I think that this has many applications, particularly if you're between level's 6-10. You could even retrain it once you hit 12.

Dawn - Curondir

In the distance I could see Father Zantus approaching, tired and wearing a robe soiled from a recent-night's sleep. He held aloft a lantern despite the fact that slim fingers of dawn were beginning to rake at the fading stars above. The harsh light served to make him look older than he was, whatever that was. I always had a hard time knowing how old humans were. One year they were young and spry, the next stooped and bearded or dead. This early morning, he looked old. Forty perhaps? Eighty? I never remembered.

From the whites of his eyes, I suspected he was not pleased. A moment later, he confirmed my suspicions.

"What is the meaning of this!" Zantus bellowed, waving his walking stick about at the corpses I had assembled earlier under the passages of the stars. Had the ravens arrived yet, he would have scattered them. "Is this.. a mockery? We've had ghouls and murders and... and... what is this?"

"It's what I said it was when we talked. Yesterday," I said, as though we had not already discussed dividing up the consecration of the dead the evening before. It probably came off a little condescending. It probably was.

"This! This is your help?" he shook his head and muttered and raised his sleeve to cover his mouth and nose from the putrefying scent that lingered in the air. Most faiths used salts or some sort of incense to disguise the smell of decay, seeking to ignore mortality in the same very moment they attempt to acknowledge it. Not mine.

"They'll no more rise than if you had bathed them in lavender, scrubbed away the viscera and flushed the blood. I assure you that. It may not look pretty, but neither was their deaths," I answered with a roll of my shoulders and knelt besides one of the once-ghouls-once-farmers. His eyes glazed skyward. They were brown and likely would be the first things the carrion birds would ravage.

"Bloody fanatics," Zantus muttered, sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders and rubbed his eyes as he shook and mumbled something to himself which I could not hear. I half thought the man might collapse. Just as well, I thought, what's one more corpse? "Ghouls and murders and fanatics now. Desna save us all. If any of the townfolk should see this they'll likely take you for part of the evils of late. And, after seeing this, I'm not sure I'd disagree."

"I am hardly fanatical," I smirked and rested an elbow on my knee as I looked up to the bewildered and still flustered priest. "But... your characterization is a common one. There are very few of us who serve the Rose. While every faith calls upon its followers to sometimes risk their lives, I'll admit that very few do it with Milani's vigor."

Zantus seemed to have calmed by now and, with a grimace, glanced down to one of the naked corpses - a woman, a body that was brutally ripped from clavicle to pelvis by what must have been a mortal wound. It was the half-orc's strike that ended her existence for the second time.

"How long will this take? The sooner this is done with, the better," he waved his cane at the bodies, "Woe if some miller's wife comes upon this farcical scene."

"I've already honeyed the bodies and spread enough of their entrails through the underbrush that I suspect a few sharks might beach themselves for this feast," the cleric did not look happy with that answer, so I summarized, "Not long. It'd be quicker if those men hadn't holed up the goblins. Still, ravens and wolves will do the job ably enough. In any event. It doesn't matter, the rites are over, the souls are gone and what happens now is of no concern."

Zantus huffed at that, and looked at me seriously, like a judge talking to a madman, his cane a gavel, "You should be concerned. You'd be hung dead in half the civilized lands for this."

I laughed and my eyes smiled as I shielded the now-crested sun to look at him and the first of the flies began to swarm around us.

"That's rather the point, isn't it?"

Apples - Jjem'jabir

"An apple," I answered, I thought, quite plainly.

"Beg your pardon?"

I glanced up from the rune-scattered and yellowed pages of the ancient tome that was perched on the table before me, the valued work profanely lit by the beer-soaked torches nestled within their scones. Her porcine face was confused and scrunched, her blue eyes dim.

Does she not have ears? I wondered, and must have mirrored her own look of befuddlement such that the two of us simply stared at one another with nary a mote of understanding.

"I'm sorry, what would you like to eat?", she repeated, slowly, as though I had not heard her the first time or were some half-wit foreigner.

"An apple," I repeated, in her same condescending tone, a half-mutter really and turned turned back to my study of the Thassilonian script. Just another boring treatise written some long-dead and want-for-talent scribes; lovers caught in a quarrel, family houses in turmoil, the maudlin sort of tropes that humans were so consumed with.

"Is that all?" the harpy asked, "Nothing else? We've some excell--"

"Just... an apple," I sighed and cut the wench off and carefully turned a page of the weathered book. I hardly ate much anyway and I did not wish to risk any chance of beer or sauce staining one of Quink's precious Thassilonian artifacts for fear of the noose. That was the problem with the man, even the junk was valuable to him. A fire could take half his attic and woe, the world would be like to lose nothing but the luminary insights into the petty squabbles of millennia-dead politicians. When he died, probably heirless, I might make a pretty fortune selling off the worthless things to a few sages that Quink corresponded with.

In short order, the duly requested apple appeared on a small, freshly cleaned plate along with a pairing knife. I nodded absently and plucked up the apple, holding it against my cheek as I continued to read.

PONTIFAX: Does not the Starling, alight in sun-lit gossamer and blazing metals, eat both the vile grub and the sweet nectar? That a bird such as that can forage so wide, is this not evidence of the ignorance of the Gods - if there be such - to allow so beautiful a creature to consume to the lowest and most base sustenance.

Not exactly the Ancient Wisdom of the Thassilonians that Quink was so desperately searching for. Still, Quink paid good money for summaries of the works that he could not hope to have the time to decipher on his own. If nothing else, Quink at least noted his own approaching mortality. So very few humans were capable of such things - or elves, for that matter. That, by itself, endeared me to odd, little man.

I sunk my claws into the flesh of the apple and took a large, satisfying bite. Meanwhile, I scratched a few notes into the journal in my lap: "Trite. Melodrama. Second rate. Heretical musings. Recommend to sell." Although I knew Quink never would.

I could sense the serving woman hovering nearby and, when she failed to leave, I closed the book and placed the rended apple back upon the tray.

"Your hands.." the woman sputtered. I glanced down to them and turned them over and nodded, somewhat surprised that so daft a woman would have noticed. I could hardly handle the ancient book now, with so much sugared juice on them. Quink would have likely cut my pay in half, for that.

"A napkin, yes. That would be much appreciated."

In our defense: we had almost no spells left, no healing left, were mostly injured and had a maybe feral wolf and our potential enemies were an unknown number of goblins (who had just torn us apart minutes earlier), several NPC's and a possible Demon-Succubus.

Panic, I think, was well advised.

Also, Merciel left out that, after our drunkard barbarian let the wolf out, scaled the wall and returned to the safety of the beach, he promptly punched the wizard (poor, Nimdhor) in the face for making him do it.